


Crystal Tears

by phoenixreal



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Blood and Torture, Brothels, Consensual Sex, Crack Treated Seriously, Cults, Dolls, Drug Withdrawal, Drug-Induced Sex, Ensanguination, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Forced Crossdressing, Forced Prostitution, Insanity, Kidnapping, Love Hotels, M/M, Non-Consensual Blood Drinking, Non-Consensual Bondage, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Prostitution, Sacrifice, Sadism, Salvation, Twisted
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-14
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-02-21 03:50:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2453654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixreal/pseuds/phoenixreal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gin Ichimaru is in search of illegal prostitution rings and brothels in Tokyo.  In his search, he comes across what sounds like an underage prostitution ring.  Once inside, he finds that there is window dressing to this place, and the dolls inside the Dollhouse Brothel aren't underage at all.  He becomes embroiled in plots that are deeper than they first appear.  How far does a detective go to protect a witness to one of the most disturbing group of people he's come across in a long time...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Inside the Dollhouse

**Author's Note:**

> Plot bunny. We'll see where it goes.

Gin Ichimaru looked like the type of person that would be down in the warehouse district looking for something less than legal.  His silvery hair hung eternally in his eyes, and he had a perpetual smile on his face.  He was one of those people that just looked sneaky.  The way he moved was something that fed more into this image.  He had a way of moving without people realizing he had done so, and they often didn’t realize he was behind them.  He wore suits and ties with plain white shirts, nothing special, and in fact, he was rather unnoticeable most of the time.  Then, when people spoke to him, they got a feeling he was a strange fellow.  He just was not a trustworthy soul, most people would say.  Sort of creepy was another thing people said about him.  Some people went farther and said he was a pure snake.  He was difficult to trust and that made him perfect for this job.  No one could lie as well as he could, and no one could walk into the most disturbing situations without a flinch of surprise like he could.

Gin had been on murder scenes where bodies were dismembered and he was able to walk through them with composure.  He’d seen some grisly torture scenes from local gangs fighting with each other, people torn apart literally, and he always seemed unfazed.  People described him as cold, some called him the ice snake, and he didn’t mind.  It went with his image, and he had to maintain his image more than anything.  To be honest, it wasn’t that it didn’t bother him, it bothered him as much as anyone else, he was simply better and handling these things than other people.  His division in the organization he worked for often handled the dismal and hopeless, so it was no surprise than his current mission was under his purview.  These people down in this area were in the depths of despair in which no one could reach.

That’s why he stood now with a private keycard into a slum warehouse in downtown Tokyo.  He’d come a long way to get here, and spent the last three weeks buy hookers and rent boys and paying them to leave when he got frustrated with them.  They weren’t what he was looking for.  No, he was looking for something special indeed.  Something that the typical red light district didn’t have.  The laws were rather unclear when it came to purchasing companionship.  Both female and male prostitutes walked the streets as cops passed them by.  Love motels set up shop and no one batted an eye, as long as no one was “pimping” or running them like a brothel, they were left alone, like the group of hookers he worked with to find this place.  They called themselves the Visored because they identified themselves by working with a fabric mask when they were on the streets.  People knew not to mess with them because they knew they would have back up.  They were a group that protected each other, and were more like a family than anything, and worked out of a Love Motel called the Dangai.

Coincidentally, the Rukongai motel was actually managed by the sister of one of Gin’s fellows in law enforcement, and owned by his family.  It had been more than handy lately because of the information that they often had to offer.  They had got him to this place, however.  That was more than enough.  He was curious because the girl that had been approached looked very child-like, which was why they were suspicious.  A couple of the others had mentioned something about a place that dealt in “underage” tastes, and that was quite illegal.

Gin entered the building and there was a nondescript looking monitor over a row of eight drawers.  In front of these drawers was a table with a simple binder on it.  The monitor lit up and words appeared on the screen with a computerized voice.

“Welcome to the Dollhouse.  Pick a sweet for yourself from the binder.  Make your choice.  Place requested fee inside the drawer with the number matching your choice.  You will receive a key.  Proceed up the stairs to your left to the designated room.  Use the key and enjoy your stay.  Replace the key in the drawer upon leaving.  Remember, you have received a great privilege to come here.  Thank you.”

Gin opened the binder, unsurprised at what he found.  This is what he was looking for after all.  The first page was what looked like a little girl.  Her hair was orangey red, and her eyes were almond shaped and dark brown.  She was made up with white pan makeup and vivid doll-like features.  The top read “Strawberry Tart” and listed a price of 300,000 yen.  He flipped the page.  Another made up the same way, but with blonde hair in pigtailed braids.  Clear blue eyes looked back from the page of this one.  “Crepe Suzette” this one read, with a price of 200,000 yen.  He flipped the page again.  This one was named “Chocolate Éclair” and had short, pixie cut brown hair and bright eyes looking back and light colored skin, but there was a large x on the page with hasty writing that said “no longer available”.  There were five more, but the prices went down as the book went on, obviously the top earner was the first listed with the final entry an older looking choice named “Raspberry Truffle” that had one a pair of bright pink pigtails, and costing 50,000 yen.  All were highly made up to look like a little girl’s doll and had vacant expressions.

Gin smiled and counted out 30 of the fifty 10,000 yen bills he was carrying in the first drawer and pushed it in.  In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought.  Might as well see what their highest earner was like.  A moment later, it popped out again with a silver colored key attached to a strawberry keychain.  He nodded to himself and followed the dark and creaking stairs up to the rooms.  The place looked more like a rundown squatters’ home rather than a location for this particular type of business.  The hallway was dimly lit, and he swore he heard rats running in the walls behind him.  This was not boding well for a pleasant experience.  The area to the right was a row of eight doors, each numbered.  The outside of the doors was rough and had peeling paint. All in all, the place was dark, dank, and lonesome.  He wondered what kept people coming back and speaking so highly of this place?  He shook the thought away and approached the first door. It was adorned with a sign with a number one on it and a strawberry.  He unlocked the door, noting as he entered there was a light above the door that was on.  An indicator someone was coming up?

He stepped into the room quietly.  It was like stepping across a threshold into another world.  All of it was decorated to look like a child’s room.  The walls were white except for the framed decorations of teddy bears, princesses, and hearts and simple white shelves. On the shelves sat the kind of knickknacks one would find in a child’s room, small ceramic and porcelain dolls, bud vases with fake roses in them, and red glass jar candles.  The room smelled of the cheap strawberry scented candles. The smell of the candles was not quite strong enough to cover the underlying smell of ammonia and cleaners.  Besides the candles, there was a white metal floor lamp beside the door providing enough light for the whole room.  On the other side of the door, there was a large empty wicker basket lined with plastic.  The center of the small room was dominated by a white metal framed canopy bed.  The white metal curved in scrollwork that made hearts here and there in the frame.  The bed looked to be a twin and was covered with a strawberry printed covering that had lace all around the outside edges cascading down to the floor.  Over the canopy it was decorated with a matching lace edging.  Beside the bed was a small table with a drawer in white with decorative red heart knobs.  On the bed was a plethora of pillows and stuffed animals surrounding what he was here for.

She, or rather he Gin realized, was sitting in cross legged in the middle of the bed.  Gin knew it was a boy because now that he was close he could see that he was definitely not a child, but had a perfectly flat chest and belly.  Gin realized the dressing was for show, and the child-like room was made for those that would visit it.  It was a fetish brothel, he understood.  It catered to those that had a thing for little girls, and wanted to play out their fantasy without crossing that line into pedophilia.  He understood now why the name of the place was The Dollhouse.  The boys were all dressed like Victorian era children, which were the basis for most Victorian style dolls.  They were highly made up and looked like dolls. 

He took a closer look at this particular boy.  He was indeed dressed like a doll, with thick makeup coating his face. His cheeks were colored bright pink over white pan makeup underneath.  Both eyes were lined thickly in kohl and accented with strokes of hasty pink eye shadow.  His lips were plump and coated in red lip gloss.  His hair was vivid orange in the garish light of the room and put up in pigtails that sat high on each side of his head and fell down to his chin in wavy ringlets.  He was wearing a cropped red top that was edged all the way around in white lace.  As Gin slowly got closer he saw he was in a red mini-skirt to match the cropped top he was wearing, which like the top was edged in lace.  The rest of his body seemed to be covered with the same pale white makeup that was used on his face.  The boy didn’t seem to notice that someone was there.  With the way he was sitting, Gin could see a strawberry patterned undergarment of some sort under the edge of the skirt.  He had a stuffed lion clutched against his chest.  He didn’t even flinch when Gin came up to the edge of the bed. 

Gin looked at the table and saw a note lying upon it.  He picked it up and opened it slowly.

“Welcome to Strawberry Tart’s room.  She’s been a very bad little girl, so please punish her accordingly.  There are plenty of toys in the drawer if you wish to use them to teach this naughty child a lesson.  She is pouting, so she refuses to speak.  Have fun making her cry for mercy.  Most cannot accomplish that task.  Leave used items in the basket by the door.  Use of condoms are required.  Enjoy your stay.”

Gin frowned, replacing the note on the small table.  He leaned a bit and opened the drawer and arched two silver brows.  In the drawer was an assortment of sex toys of the like Gin rarely saw in use, along with lubes, condoms, and various paddles and whips. Gin blinked and shut the drawer.  The fact that the boy hadn’t moved or even looked at him had him worried.  Gin sat down on the bed next to him and heard the distinct crinkle of plastic.  The bed was lined with plastic to keep the mattress clean.  This was quite a thorough operation.  He leaned forward and snapped his fingers in front of the boy’s face.  Nothing, he just stared into space.  He frowned and took out his phone, turning the LED on and shining it into the boy’s face.  He did flinch, slowly, and Gin saw that his pupils were dilated and nearly unresponsive.  Drugged.  He sighed, turning off the LED flash and dialing the number in the phone.

“Cap, inside, confirmed brothel, don’t raid the place hard.  Looks like we have forced a prostitution ring.  This is not an underage ring.  Victims are possibly drugged; at least the one I’m with is heavily drugged.  We need to assume the others are as well until we know otherwise.  Yeah, I know.  I’m in room one.  Proceed.  One confirmed on site, entry way, someone is behind the wall taking money.  There may be others, the place is immaculate inside the rooms, so there must be cleaners and set up crews.”  He put the phone in his pocket and turned to the boy.  They weren’t prostitutes like they thought, they were victims.  That certainly changed things in how they proceeded.

Gin reached up and put a hand on the boy’s face beside him.  “Mah, mah, can you hear me?”

He blinked slowly and looked at Gin finally, tilting his head to the side slowly.  He didn’t speak, though.  Gin nodded.  “We’re going to get you out of here, okay?  Can you tell me if the others are drugged?”

The boy’s brows knitted for a second and he swallowed hard and nodded slowly.  Gin smiled at him in a way he was hoping was reassuring.  It probably came off as creepy like usual, however.  He sighed, and looked around, finding a container of hand wipes beside the bed.  He pulled out one and began wiping away the white makeup from his arms, frowning as he uncovered various shading of bruises underneath.  He shook his head, seeing the pale skin underneath.  It was quite obvious that he hadn’t been outside in a while.

“Can you tell me your name?” Gin said, putting the wipes aside and looking into his eyes.

His brow creased a bit and he started to speak then shook his head, an almost pained expression on his face.  Gin heard someone below and knew that the team had come in.  A few minutes later the door popped open and his blond haired lieutenant, Izuru Kira looked in.

“Captain, there you are, we got one in custody, but there’s no one else here outside these rooms,” he said, coming and glancing around.  “They’re not children,” he said softly, looking at the young man.

“No, they aren’t, but this is organized, for one, so that’s not permitted, and for two, he’s drugged, so this is most likely a forced ring.  How many vics?” he said, moving to stand up.

Just as he started to stand, one of the boy’s hands reached out and grabbed him by the wrist.  Gin looked down and frowned.  The boy wasn’t looking at him, and his left arm clutched even tighter to the stuffed lion he was holding than before.  It surprised him.  Usually, they avoided him because he looked so much like the johns they served in these hellish situations.  He sat back down slowly and put his other hand on the boy’s.  Slowly, his brown eyes moved up to meet Gin’s gaze.  He tilted his head to the side slowly.

“You…” he began softly, his voice rough and thick.  “You…help?” he asked finally.

Gin blinked and nodded.  “Yes, yes, we’re going to help.  We’re going to take you out of here, okay?”

Izuru stood to the side with his arms crossed.  This was a new one.  He never watched his boss interact with the victims or the prostitutes they picked up.  Usually, they didn’t want anything to do with him since he looked so sleazy, especially at times like this when he was dressed for this.

The boy nodded.  “Th…Thank…you…” he managed, but his hand gripped Gin’s wrist even tighter.  Gin glanced down, and back to Izuru. 

“Kira, can you bring Isane or Retsu up here to see our friend here?” he said quietly.

Kira nodded.  “I’m sure they’ve gotten the other rooms open by now, so we’ll see what we have.  I’ll alert the hospital.  Stay here, Captain.  I’ll be back.”

Gin nodded but kept his eyes on the boy.  He looked like he was trying to focus on Gin’s face very hard; as though he was fighting the drugs he’d been given.  Gin left his right wrist clutched in the boy’s left hand where he’d grabbed it.  He reached over and grabbed another wet wipe from the box where he’d left it on the bed.  He started to wipe away the makeup but the boy flinched back from him.  Gin held the wipe up so he could see it and this time he let him wipe away the white paint that was coating his face.  Gin knew he wasn’t going to come near getting it off the boy, but he hoped that at least he could give him some semblance of gentle touch rather than what he was used to in this place.

A few minutes later, the main medic for their organization, Retsu Unohana, came into the room with her case.  She came over and smiled at Gin. 

“Good work, Gin-san,” she said smiling at him gently.  “There are six other young men, all made up like this, and all are on varying amounts of drugs.  I’ll have to get full tox screens for them all to see what, but most of them are in this same state of near hypnotic trance.  My guess is phenobarbital, but I won’t know until we get forensics to clear the rest of the place or the screens back.  Kira said you were having difficulty here?”

Gin smiled at her.  “Ah, yeah, he seems to not want to let go of me,” Gin said with a smirk. “That’s a first, they’re usually runnin’ the other way.”

Retsu nodded and came up beside Gin and smiled at the boy.  “Can you look my way?” she asked, reaching out to adjust his face toward her.  As soon as her fingers touched his face he jerked backward away from her and fell off the side of the bed, pulling Gin over with him.  He’d tried to get away from Retsu, but he didn’t release Gin’s wrist.

“No more,” he yelped as he tried to pull away, seemingly not realizing he still was holding onto Gin with his right hand and clutching the lion with his left.  “No…no more…” he said shaking his head and trying to pull himself to his feet using his elbow on the windowsill.  Gin managed to keep somewhat upright and got to his knees by him and used his other hand to grab his left arm.  He turned suddenly.

“Hey, hey, calm down, here to help you remember?” he said quietly.

His eyes went back to the confused Retsu and back to him.  “She hurts us,” he said quietly, trying not to look at Retsu. 

“What do you mean?” he asked, looking back to Retsu.

“The dark one, she has the needles,” he said, trying to pull even further away from where Retsu was standing.

“A woman with dark hair?” he said, looking back at Retsu who nodded and left the room, understanding what was happening.  “A woman with dark hair gives you the drugs?”

He seemed to relax a bit with Retsu gone and he nodded.  “She doesn’t like us…” he whispered.

Gin nodded, still kneeling beside the window.  “Okay, okay, we’ll get you out of here, okay?” he said, glancing to where his right hand still circled his wrist.  “Come on, can you walk?” he asked.

He nodded and let Gin help him to unsteady feet.  Gin put his right around his shoulders and let him hold onto his left wrist as they moved slowly to the door.  When they got to the doorway the boy stopped and looked up at the lit light.  “Customer up,” he muttered slowly and clutched the lion against his chest.  Gin swallowed and ushered him down the stairs.  Luckily, until the building was cleared of victims, the forensics teams weren’t allowed in, so there weren’t many people around.  They came out into the night and he winced and looked up at the lights.  He led him over to his car, an unmarked, and a uniformed officer came his direction.

“Sir, did you want me to transport him?” he asked.

Gin shook his head.  “Nah, I’m done here, I’ll take him back with me.  The rest get off to the hospital?”

“Yes, sir.  Ward three,” he said with a nod.

Gin opened the passenger door and sat him down.  “I need you to let go,” he said, pulling gently at his hand.  He nodded and let go, both hands now clutching the stuffed lion he held.  Gin buckled his belt and went to sit down.  He was staring straight ahead and he had to wonder what all they had him on.  They made it to the hospital and he was unsurprised to find that most of the victims had reacted poorly to any female nurses with dark hair.  They had been given a ward together with separate rooms, and Gin led his charge into a room to a bed.  A couple nurses came in and Gin stepped back. 

Again, though, the minute one of them got near, he started to lash out, this time kicking one of them.  Gin winced.  Great, he thought as she started to yell for help restraining him. 

“Wait, wait, don’t,” he said.  “Here, let me help, he seems to trust me,” he said to the flustered nurse.  She frowned but nodded.  Luckily, he’d just kicked her in the arm and not too hard at that.

Gin sighed and stood in front of him.  “They just want to get these awful clothes off of you and put you in this hospital gown.  Can I do it?” he asked with a sigh.

The boy nodded slowly.  Gin smiled and held out his hand.  “Here, let’s get you in a shower while we can, yes?” he asked, looking to see the nurse nodding.  The showers were equipped to catch any stray fibers anyway.  One of the nurses followed him to snap the evidence pictures as he was undressed.

He maneuvered him into the shower, and sat him down on the seat it was equipped with.  He pulled out the hair ties first, and then reached behind and unbuttoned the crop top.  Once it was off, he could see fading bruises underneath the makeup that was covering his body.  He stood him up to take off the skirt and underpants that were underneath it.  He didn’t seem bothered by any of it, however, just stared past Gin’s face.  Gin got the water warm and started washing off the makeup.  Gin, while usually unfazed by this sort of thing winced at the amount of old and new markings on his body.  It seemed he’d been in this brothel for a while, and if he was always left with the same instructions… 

When he had washed it all off of him, they found a painfully thin young man, they guessed in his early twenties, with numerous contusions and abrasions.  One of his eyes was black, and his nose was in need of being set properly.  He got the gown on him and maneuvered him back into the hospital bed.  He seemed so very docile, but he knew better.  He’d seen the fight or flight reflex snap into reality anytime he felt threatened despite the drugs he was under.  He had a feeling this one might be a handful. 

He looked up as the door opened and one of his fellow captains, Captain Kuchiki, came in.  He nodded.  “Gin, you’ve outdone yourself this time,” he said.  “Quite a bust.  Do you think any of them can identify who they were working for?”

“They weren’t working for anyone,” Gin said, watching as the boy stared out the window and clutched the lion to his chest.  “All seven were drugged up so much they could barely move, let alone leave.”

Byakuya nodded.  “So, more than just a brothel.”

He nodded.  “Much more.  We’ll see what we can find out.  Those the files on the others?” he said, looking at the stack Byakuya was holding. 

“Yes, this one is the last before I take it to the office,” Byakuya said.  Gin arched a brow to ask to see them.

After a few minutes he handed the stack back.  “This one,” he said, pointing to the bed.  “He’s the one that was there the longest.  The signs are more pronounced, and he has more scars than the rest, some are quite old.”

Byakuya nodded.  “So he possibly knows the most about what was going on,” he agreed quietly.  “I’ll go talk to the head captain, but you should probably stay with him for now.  I’ll let the others know.  This is too organized an operation to be some fly by night sex scam.  There may be more victims.  I’ll see if my sister has heard anything at the Dangai from her friends.”

Gin nodded and sighed.  “Wonderful.  Now I get to play guard,” he muttered, grabbing a plastic chair and sitting it outside the door to the boy’s room. 

Hopefully they got fingerprints back soon so they knew who they were.  Calling them John Doe 1-7 was going to get old really quick.  He was about to nod off when he heard a shout and blinked and came to awake when he heard another.  He turned back and opened the door to see one of the nurses struggling to restrain the boy with great difficulty.  He was panicking, it seemed, most likely having woken up in a strange place as they flushed the drugs out of his system.  Anyone would panic.

Gin put a hand on the nurse’s shoulder.  “Easy, sweetheart,” he said and she gasped.

His eyes were locked on Gin the second he came into the room.  Gin nodded.  “Remember me, kid?” he said.

He nodded slowly yanking his hand out of the half tied restraint.  “Wh-where…where am I?” he asked, looking around and blinking.

“Hospital, remember?” Gin said slowly, moving closer and sitting down beside him, untying the restraint the nurse had managed to tie.

He lifted his hands and rubbed his wrists and looked around.  “What…what happened?” he said, patting his bed as though he were looking for something.  Gin smiled and saw that the nurse had set the stuffed lion on the table.  He reached over and picked it up.  He patted the boy’s leg and he turned back and snatched it out of Gin’s hands immediately.

“I found you in a brothel, you were drugged.  My guess is for quite a while.  Can you tell me your name?” he said softly.

“Ich…Ichigo,” he said, looking around with bleary but much clearer eyes than before.

Gin smirked.  “Ichigo,” he said softly. He understood the strawberries now.  “Do you remember your last name?”

“K-Kurosaki,” he said without thinking.  “What…how long has it been?”

Gin blinked.  “I don’t know.  How long were you in there?”

Ichigo shook his head.  “I don’t know…I don’t know…it all blurs together…”

Gin nodded slowly.  “Well, today is the 3rd of June, 2014.”

“Five years,” Ichigo muttered, looking back at him.  “I’ve been there five years?” he said, frowning deeply.  “Five years.  Are the others safe?” he said, looking at him.

“They’re fine; they’re all here with you.  We got everyone out.  There was only one person other than the seven of you working there.  We have her in custody,” he said with a smile.

“Seven?” Ichigo said, eyes widening at the world.  “There should have been eight,” he said.  “Someone was missing?  We never leave the warehouse…” he said softly, looking worried.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find out what happened, for now, you need to rest.  And try to avoid taking of nurses’ heads, okay?” he said, smirking.

Ichigo nodded.  “I do that, that’s why she always gave me more shots than the others, I fought too many times…” he said softly.

Gin nodded.  “You don’t have to fight anymore, you’re safe now.”

Ichigo shook his head.  “I’m not safe, none of us are safe, they’ll come for us, take us again, and we’ll be gone like the last time someone helped us…” he said softly, clutching the lion.

“What do you mean?  You’ve been rescued before?” Gin said, now worrying more.

“I have,” he said.  “There was a policeman.  In Hong Kong.  He bought me and took me out but then they came and shot him at the police station and took me back.  They were very mad after that.  She broke my jaw.”

“Who?” Gin asked.  “Who are these people?”

Ichigo looked at him and shook his head.  “The Sternritter.  They don’t let go of what they own.  They’ll come for us.  They won’t give up.”


	2. A Doll's Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First Draft my dears, edits coming, I'm sure.

**Chapter Two**

A Doll’s Life

 “Excuse me?” came a voice that startled Gin awake in the hallway.  He looked up to see a nurse standing there staring at him. 

“What?” he said, rubbing his eyes and looking up.

“I’m just coming on shift, it’s seven, and the other nurse said that this patient was rather violent, I thought I’d ask you to come in with me.  I’m rather non-confrontational…” she said timidly.  She was a small thing, with huge breasts and a set of big gray eyes.  He nodded. 

“Orihime Inoue,” she said quietly, smiling as he stood up.

“Captain Ichimaru,” he said with a smile.

She smiled and pushed the door open.  Gin followed her into the room and was glad to see that Ichigo was sleeping.  He was still on an IV drip, and they would get back the bloodwork to see how things were looking overall later in the day.  They, of course, had sent off everything for every sexually transmitted disease known, as well as HIV and other communicable diseases.  So far that the doctors could tell, none of the boys appeared to have any sort of STD.  He looked at the nurse.

“What will you be doing?” he asked quietly.

“I need bloodwork again, and his vitals of course,” she said.  “Mandy said that you were able to help last night.  Considering what he’s been through, Dr. Ishida doesn’t want the victims restrained if at all possible.  He is coming off a heavy dose of drugs.  Viagra and Phenobarbital, with trace amounts of several other sedatives.  Everything is on the report, but it was amazing he could even walk,” she said moving toward him.  She smiled softly.  “He’s cute,” she said with a blush rising to her cheeks. 

Gin smiled.  “Don’t get too attached, dear, these type of victims are often a handful,” he said as he moved forward to try and wake him as gently as possible.

It turned out that gently as possible concluded with a fist connecting with his nose in short order.  He stumbled back with a grunt and the nurse gasped out loud.  Gin waved at her to stay back as he straightened his jacket and sighed.  It was expected.  It wasn’t the worst he’d gotten, to be honest.  He blinked away the tears as he looked at him, and as expected he was glaring at him from under deeply knitted brows.  In opposition to the furious look upon his face, though, he was clutching the stuffed lion to his chest still.  Gin nodded to himself.  The lion wasn’t just a product of his drugged condition.  It actually was a significant item to him.

“Ah, Ichigo, you’ve got a mean right hook,” Gin said, rubbing his nose.  “You remember me?”

Ichigo looked back and forth between the frightened nurse and the man in the long white coat and nodded.  “You…you were there last night.  You brought me here.”

Gin nodded, moving to stand by the side of the bed again.  “I did.  The rest of the team brought the others as well.”

Ichigo nodded, looking around and clenching his jaw.  “I want out of here.  I want to leave.”

“I’m afraid you can’t leave just yet, you’re going to need medical care…” Gin started.

“I don’t fucking care.  I want out.  I want to leave.  I want to get away, now,” he said.  “I just want to be left alone, I don’t want anyone to touch me, I don’t want any fucking medical care, I just want to be left alone.”

Gin sighed.  “Ichigo, I’ll see what I can do. But for now, would you at least let the nurse here take your vitals?  She’s just doing her job.”

Ichigo nodded, looking away as she stepped forward and did her checks.  He didn’t flinch or move when she took blood.  She nodded to Gin and headed out the door with the blood samples and the chart.

Ichigo turned over and lay on his side, facing away from the door and then looked back at Gin who was standing by the bed still.  “Are you fucking stupid?  Leave.”

Gin nodded and bowed slightly and stepped out the door.  He waved at Kira.  “Hey, stay by his door.  He’s aggressive, more than the rest from what I’ve heard.  I’m going to see what’s going on with the others.”

“Yeah, boss, hey, the one with the pink hair, Szayel, his name is, keeps asking if Ichigo is okay.  I told him I didn’t know anything, but he’s pretty insistent and frantic about it.  Turns out one of the others, Illfordt, one of the blondes, is his brother, so they’ve been put in the same room, you might want to talk to him, then,” Kira said, taking a seat outside the door.

Gin nodded and went to the room across the hall and knocked on the door gently.  “Enter,” came a voice from inside.  He pushed open the door to find the two brothers, the blonde and the one with dyed pink hair, sitting on one of the beds together.  Szayel was sitting against the head with Illfordt sitting between his legs and was brushing out his hair while the blonde flipped through a magazine.  Szayel patted his shoulder and Illfordt got up and flopped back onto his bed.

“Captain Ichimaru, yes?” he said with a soft smile.

“Yes, and you are…” he picked up the clipboard.  “Szayel Granz.  It says here you weren’t drugged like the other boys.”

Szayel shook his head, taking the brush to his own hair and pulling it back in a ponytail on top of his head.  “No, I was not.  I did not wish to lose my faculties.  I had to take care of the boys, after all.  It was a sacrifice on my part, and sometimes I dearly wished for the drugs, but if I had them, I couldn’t have taken care of them.”

Gin nodded.  “Take care of them?” he asked.

“I was in the Dollhouse for four years.  The only one there when I and my brother were taken from our home in Germany was Ichigo.  He was so alone and angry, and I knew then I couldn’t fight them.  I watched what the drugs did to Ichigo and Illfordt, and it was a blessing and a curse.  So instead I told them I’d acquiesce to their requests without argument if I was allowed to be their caretaker.  You see, I’m a nurse by profession.  My brother and I were taken from outside our apartment building.  They were going to kill me at first, because I appeared to be a woman, but my brother told them I wasn’t, and to let me live.  Because of that, they took me as well.  I’m actually transgender, and four years ago I had just started hormone therapy in preparation for gender reassignment,” he said.  “So I actually prefer to be referred to as a woman, but for now, we’ll forego that preference.  I would rather see to Ichigo.  My guess is, by the blackening on your face, he is in his usual mood when he comes down off the drugs.”

Gin smiled.  “I take it he is usually a violent person?”

Szayel shook his head.  “No matter what I try with that child, I cannot quell his anger and violence.  He reacts to pain with fury.  Tears rarely fall from his eyes, even when they should flow in rivers.” 

Gin looked skeptical.  “Okay, you can come see him for a little while,” he said with a nod.  He could come up with no good reason to deny his request.  There were shinigami officers all over the place, and of course there was their own division there as well.

Szayel nodded and stood.  He looked back to Illfordt.  “Will you be fine while I’m seeing to him?”

“Sure, sis, have at,” he said, waving a hand over his shoulder at him, absorbed in the magazine in front of him.

“Okay, kiddo, stay here,” he said, ruffling the blonde’s hair as he followed Gin, wrapping the hospital gown tightly around him as they came to the door. Szayel turned to Gin as they walked.  “I was nineteen when our parents were killed in a car accident.  I pretty much raised Illfordt from then on.  Someone my age, raising a nine year old, it wasn’t easy.  We made due, though,” he said with a soft smile.

Kira looked up and smiled as they approached.  Gin opened the door and went in while Szayel leaned against the doorway with his arms crossed, eyes locked on the fluff of bright orange hair sticking up over the edge of the covers.

Ichigo growled from the bed.  “I told you all to stay the hell out,” he groused, pulling the covers tighter over his body, but Szayel could see the tremble in his fingers as he fumbled with the covers.  “Leave me the fuck alone.”

Szayel sighed.  “Honey, I swear, you are the most foul mouthed creature when you aren’t doped out of your head,” he said, a light smile crossing his face.

Ichigo immediately rolled over and blinked at him, and Gin thought for a second he might actually cry.  Ichigo swallowed noisily and watched as Szayel slowly went over to him and smiled.  Ichigo swung over and sat up on the bed and grabbed him in a tight hug.

“Szay, oh gods, Szay, I thought they were lying, they…they said everyone was here…and I…I didn’t…” Ichigo said, hands clutching at him desperately.  “I can’t trust anyone…you know…Szay, oh you’re here, I’m so glad…are you okay?  Is Illfordt okay? The others?  Who’s missing?  Someone’s missing. They said someone was missing.”

“Hush, honey, hush, I’m here, we’re all here.  Everyone but Luppi, but he’s somewhere safe if what I heard is true,” he said softly, hugging the orangette to him tightly.  “So don’t worry, okay?” he said softly and sat down beside him stroking his head softly. 

“Szay, are we really free?” he said, still clinging to the other man with his head buried in his shoulder.  “Please, tell me it…it isn’t another dream…or like…Hong Kong…” he said, and Gin knew that he heard the boy choking back tears that time, but his face was buried in Szayel’s neck.

“Honey, you’re safe, okay?  Not a dream, not like Hong Kong.  They aren’t getting to us again, okay?” he said softly, rocking slightly with him.  “Shh, now, you have to promise me to go a bit easier on these guys though, they’re trying to help us, you know?”

“But I don’t like to be touched, you know that,” he said, and Gin was sure this time he heard the sound of choked tears in his voice.  “I just want to go away and be alone with you and Illfordt, just us, like you promised,” he said thickly.

“Honey, I know, but I’m here, and it is okay, I promise,” he said.  “And they understand that.  When everything is safe, we’ll get away, okay?  I promised you that, and I don’t break my promises, honey, even if it takes years, didn’t I say that?”

Ichigo nodded, taking a gasping breath.  “Yeah,” he said finally, hands flexing against Szayel’s back.  “But…where’s Luppi?”

“Ah, yes, I’m sorry to interrupt, but you mentioned that this Luppi was gone?” Gin said. 

Szayel nodded over Ichigo’s head.  “Yes, there was a buy out a few days ago.  It happens sometimes; someone finds one of the dolls of great interest and makes a one-time buyout offer.  Usually, it is about ten times their daily price, and only if they’re beginning to be a drain on resources.  Luppi lately had been unpredictable, several instances of resisting the customers despite the drugs, and I heard the Matron say that he was getting too much to handle.  He was always a sensitive thing, and I just think the increase in visits when they raised his price was too much for him.”

Gin arched a brow.  “Increase in visits?”

Szayel nodded.  “The operation was pretty simple.  There were eight, no more, at a given time.  Usually we were moved between major cities worldwide every six to nine months.  We’ve only been here for two months, so I’m very surprised that you caught wind of the operation this fast.   Of course, this is why there were only eight of us.  We’re ranked according to various things.  Obviously, because of my age, I’m ranked lowest.  I’m the only one of the boys over twenty, however, I fill a role that they don’t have to fill, that of nursemaid and caretaker, so I’m allowed to stay.  The new boys are brought in between 14 and 16 usually, and they spend two months being trained,” Szayel looked a little pale at the thought.  “After that they are moved into the rankings depending on their desirability.  The more desirable the boy, the higher they rank and the more money they pull in.  If a boy starts pulling more money, they move up, if they start pulling less, they move down.  If a boy goes for more than a month without a client, they’re…disposed of and a new boy is brought in.  We’re lucky; most of us have been with the Dollhouse for a while, though Luppi and Ggio are newer, less than a full year.”

Gin nodded, having pulled out a notepad while Szayel was speaking.  Szayel smiled again and hugged Ichigo against him again.  “The drugs are to keep them docile.  Phenobarbital, valium, Haldol, tegretol, ketamine, and of course, liberal use of Viagra and Cialis type drugs.  One of the pleasures is seeing the boy ejaculate for them.  There were other drugs; those are just the bottles I’ve seen personally on the Matron’s tray.  Ichigo, he was always a fighter, and always black and blue, I swear,” Szayel said, rubbing Ichigo’s back as he spoke.  “I guess that’s what made me want to take care of him.  It wasn’t long after we were brought on that other boys came in, and I found my place.  It was hell, I won’t lie, Captain, pure hell.  I did my best though for the boys.”

“Were the low earners the only ones that left?” Gin asked, jotting notes and looking up.

Szayel shook his head sadly and Gin saw tears misting his golden eyes.  “Every six months, the top earner, whoever it was, would disappear for no reason, and we were never told where they went.  Buyouts, we knew about.  However, when the top earner disappeared, they spoke nothing of it, like they’d never existed.”  Szayel’s hands clenched Ichigo.  “Ichigo was made top earner after the last one disappeared five months ago.   Six months, that’s how long before they disappear once they hit the top earner spot.  Around midsummer and midwinter, every year.  It would have been next month…midsummer…” he said softly, petting Ichigo’s head.  “I would have lost him and never known what happened.”

Ichigo looked up and Gin could see that his eyes were definitely red.  “I wouldn’t let them take me, Szay, you know that.  I would have fought them,” he said softly.

Szayel smiled.  “I’m sure you would have, honey.  But I didn’t want to lose you, you’re my baby, you know?”

Ichigo smiled and nodded, putting his head on Szayel again, but not looking at Gin.  Gin nodded.  “So, what happened to Luppi?” he said.  Ichigo turned a questioning eye to Szayel too.

“Like I said, a buyout, from what the Matron said.  She said something about a little redheaded girl named…um…” Szayel’s brow creased.  “Oh, what was it?  She said it was something that started with an R…  I can’t remember exactly, but she did say that she lived down in the old Executor Building, a really strange girl, if that makes sense.”

Gin nodded, he knew that building.  “Okay, I think I can go check it out.  Do you know the names of anyone?” he said, looking up.

Szayel shook his head.  “I can give you descriptions, but we never knew their names.  The Matron was the dark haired woman that brought food, water, and drugs.  The Enforcer would hand out punishments and would take away the ones that…well, the ones that didn’t last.  There was the Cleaner, he came in and fixed up the rooms.  And…you see, we knew them by their jobs, and we weren’t given names.  They didn’t hide their faces, though, so perhaps it will help.  I just know they went by the name the Sternritter.”

Gin nodded.  “Okay, if you want to stay in here, go ahead, I’m sure the nurses would appreciate not having their heads taken off, so, I’ll go find out who bought this Luppi.  You said you thought he was safe?  How do you know it wasn’t some pervert?” he said, pausing at the door.

Szayel nodded.  “The Matron said something about the girl not even caring about sex, something about saving him.  It happens, now and then, someone has a conscious.”

Gin nodded and left, hearing Ichigo and Szayel talk softly as he left.  The whole thing was curious.  More and more it was sounding like a very organized operation, and that made him curious and nervous.  Organized meant that they had plans and actions in place.  He nodded to the officer at the entrance to the ward.  He figured he go check the Executor first.

The Executor building was literally next door to the red light district, not more than five blocks from the Dangai love motel.  It had been a factory twenty years ago, and now it was divided up into apartments, all relatively spacious, but equipped with the barest essentials.  There were no “amenities” in the place.  It had concrete floors, spackle coated walls, and thin wall dividers between the rooms.  Each apartment had a small bathroom with a shower and a sink, and a kitchen with a stove, refrigerator, and a sink.  The places went cheap, and that was about it. 

He knew from the Visored about the place.  Apparently, the owner made video games and often asked the prostitutes to playtest them.  According to everything he’d heard, they were legitimate, and there was nothing kinky going on even though they paid the hookers well for what they did.  Gin had never been there, but he knew that other officers had investigated to see if there was anything illegal going on.

He looked up.  The building was four stories and each floor was split into four apartments.  He guessed he’d start at the top where the couple lived that did the games from what the Visored had mentioned.   He headed up the stairs and as he passed rooms he heard locks turn.  Well, they certainly didn’t seem like a trustworthy lot around here, he thought.  As he passed one, he saw a dark haired man peering out at him before the door slammed.  A flight later, a nearly shaved headed man did similarly, staring at him until he headed up the stairs again.  Finally he got to the top floor where there was a plaque on the door of the first apartment reading Digital Radial Invaders (DRI).  He sighed and knocked on it gently.

A few minutes later a woman with hair that was more pink then red opened the door and smiled.  “Can I help you?” she asked.

“Um, yeah, Captain Gin Ichimaru, Shinigami.  I was here about a boy named Luppi?” he said, arching one brow.

“Oh that poor boy?” she said, looking sad.  “Please, come in a moment.  I’ll tell you about what happened.”

Gin nodded and followed her into the surprisingly nice looking apartment.  There were overly adorable things everywhere, however.  He followed her into the living area and sat down across from her.  “Yukio is out right now, but he’ll be back soon.  So, I guess something happened with that awful place?”

Gin nodded.  “I can’t go into details, of course, but I understand you bought one of the boys that worked at the place?”

She nodded.  “Yes, I got an invitation to it, and I thought it was something entirely different,” she said, picking up a plain looking envelope and handing it over.  Gin opened it and saw an ornate stationary with an invitation to visit the Dollhouse that promised an experience unlike any other.  It indicated that they had the loveliest dolls in the world.  “My name is Riruka Dokugamine, and what I do is buy and sell toys, dolls, that sort of things.  I find hidden treasures, I guess you could say.  I don’t make a lot off it but I do have fun.  I thought it was a doll collector’s thing.  I couldn’t have been more wrong!” she said, sighing.

Gin nodded, pulling out the notepad and jotting down things.  “Mah, mah, I bet that was a shock, eh?” he said with a grin.

“Indeed, I came right home and told Yukio we had to do something.  So I went back with a wad of cash and bought out the one that I could.  There was only one boy they would let me buy, and that was Luppi.  They refused to let me take the others.  I tried to buy them all, but they refused, saying the most they could let go of was one at a time, but come back in a month if I wanted to buy another,” she said with a sigh.  “The poor dear was a mess; all covered in makeup and was barely coherent.  He’s not quite over the drugs, but we put him across the hall with Wonderweiss.  We figured it was the most restful place we could put him.  He keeps the place dark and quiet.”

Gin nodded.  “And Wonderweiss is?”

“Oh, he helps Yukio with the business.  He’s the head programmer and helps with debugging the games.  He’s a dear one to us, like a child of our heart,” she said with a smile.  “We brought him back from Germany with us, poor thing, he’s a nonverbal genius, you know.  Such a sad tale, his father was an infamous serial killer, so he couldn’t get any peace there.  That’s why we brought him with us.  Of course, Yukio saw how talented he was the moment he saw him.”

“I’m sure I’ll have more questions on that, but one more, you and Yukio are roommates?” Gin asked.

“Oh, no, well I mean, yes, but we’re also together, you know,” she said with a slight smile.

He nodded and smiled.  “Can I talk to Luppi?” he asked.

“Oh, certainly, if he’s up for it,” she said, standing and motioning Gin to follow her. 

She took him across the hall and smiled as a really tall, dark skinned boy in a Hawaiian looking shirt walked by.  “Hey, Sado, how are the birds?”

He nodded slowly.  “Good,” he said in a deep voice and went into a nearby room. 

Riruka knocked and looked at Gin.  “He lives in that apartment and has a little aviary on the roof for the pigeons.  He adores little animals,” she said as the door opened and Gin small a shorter young man with messy blonde hair and bright violet eyes looking back.

“Mind if we see your guest?” she said.

The boy nodded quickly and motioned them in.  Riruka kissed him on the top of the head.  “We won’t bother you, but I hope you remembered lunch,” she said.

“Lunch, had lunch,” he muttered as he headed back to the large triple monitored computer set up that filled one side of the room.  Other than the glow from the computer screens, there were no lights.

Riruka smiled and looked at Gin.  “He gets so absorbed in his work he forgets eating and sleeping,” she said with a smile and led them to a paper screen to the side.  She rapped on it gently and a voice said “Yes?” from inside.

She pushed the screen back and Gin recognized the boy from the third picture from the binder. He was fair skinned with a crown of dark brown pixie cut hair on his head.  He was petite and very feminine looking in features, even without the makeup on him.  He also looked to be quite frail and thin.  It was obvious that he hadn’t fared well under the conditions in the Dollhouse.  Gin smiled as the boy looked up at him.  Riruka kneeled beside the mat he was laying on.

“Sweetie, this is Gin, he’s with the shinigami police,” she said with a smile.

“Luppi, I’m glad to see you,” he said with a smile.

“Why…why are you here?” he said, frowning.  “Did something happen to the others?” he said, starting to look worried. 

Gin sighed.  It was obvious these boys had gotten used to living together and taking care of each other, it was no wonder they wanted to know about each other.

“Well, I was wondering if you wanted to come down the hospital with me and see them yourself, actually,” he said with a soft smile.

Luppi’s eyes went wide.  “What?  They’re out?  You got them out?”

Gin nodded.  “All seven, and they were worried when you weren’t there.  Szayel helped though, he heard that you’d been bought out.”

Luppi smiled and looked at Riruka with a big smile.  “I’ll go, Riruka, I have to see them,” he said softly, tears starting to fall immediately.

Riruka smiled at him.  “Of course, I’ll go if you want,” she said softly.

Luppi nodded.  “Yes, of course…I want you to go,” he said getting to his feet shakily.

“And of course we’d like to have you checked over as well,” Gin said.  “Mah, mah, and of course the talking to you about things that happened, but not right away, we wanna make sure you’re all healthy, first.”

Luppi nodded and together they headed down the stairs with Gin.  On the way out, Gin didn’t hear any doors slamming or locks clicking.  It seemed he’d been someone accepted into their midst.


	3. Dolls' Origins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First draft, there may be MANY edits coming to this. I'm still working out some things in my head on where this is going. Enjoy, though!

 

The room was dark and cool.  That was the way he preferred it, of course.  He didn’t want things to disturb him.  It had to be the ideal conditions for such an esteemed being as himself.  He glanced at the calendar.  The midsummer celebration would happen soon.  He was growing weak these days, as always before the midsummer and midwinter sacrifice.  He turned and picked up the paper with the picture of the orange haired boy he’d been grooming for this day the last five years.  He was dearly looking forward to this celebration.  His taste would no doubt be much better than any of the past sacrifices he’d taken.  He always relished those that were fighters and resisted until the end.  Very few were bright enough spirits to slake the thirst of a god…

“My lord!” a voice rang from the entrance to his chamber.  “My lord Yhwach!”

Yhwach turned his dark haired head toward the opening where his high priest, first among his worshippers, stood with a face that reflected deep pain.  Jugram Haschwalth deeply regretted the words he was about to speak to his god and master, and that was easy for Yhwach to read upon the tall blonde’s face. 

“My lord, terrible news.  The Temple has been raided, and all seven of the candidates have been stolen away!  They have all been taken, my lord!” he said, bowing deeply to him.

Yhwach turned to him.  “Even my chosen?”

“Y-yes, my lord.  The Chosen Child has been removed as well!  We have lost one to these thieves in the night, the loyal and good Canadace Catnipp has been imprisoned by the vile creatures that have invaded your holy space, my lord,” Jugram continued, not raising from the bent position.

“Gather the fold,” Yhwach said, turning away.  “Midsummer is in less than a month.  I must have the Chosen Child to give me strength for the next half year.  There is no other to slake the thirst of your god and master, my priest.  I shall speak in person to the fold, and we shall retrieve what the heathens have stolen from us.  To think, I deem to provide the lowly creatures with pleasures of the flesh, and they turn on me in their greed!  Bring the Sternritter in, my priest.  Bring them all.  We will retrieve my bright one, and then we shall quit this vile country.  This is how they repay the beautiful gifts of the god!” he said, disappearing into the dark depths of the luxurious canopied bed.

“Yes, my lord, yes,” Jugram said, ducking and running from the chambers to summon the others.

His lord and god had spoken, and he listened.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Gin stood with his back to Szayel’s doorframe as he heard Szayel in the room comforting a vomiting Illfordt.  Szayel came out slowly.  “They’re all going through some degree of withdrawal.  Ichigo and…” he paused to look up and see an unsteady looking Luppi standing beside Gin.

“Oh, sugar!” he exclaimed and ran up and hugged him tightly.  “Oh sugar-baby, I was afraid we wouldn’t see you again!”

Luppi smiled.  “Well, I’m here.  Gin came and got me from my new home,” he said, smiling.

Szayel pushed him back and looked him over.  “Who on earth dressed you, sugar?” he said with a wry grin.

Luppi was wearing a pair of patterned Hello Kitty pajama pants with a pair of boots and a short sundress of yellow and green stripes over it.  He picked at the skirt.  “Well, Wonderweiss, the person I’m staying with, he dressed me.  He has an…interesting wardrobe.”

Szayel shook his head and hugged him again.  “Oh, baby, I’m glad you’re okay.  How’s the withdrawal?” he said gently.

Luppi shook his head.  “Rough few days, been…”

From the bathroom, there was the sound of Illfordt violently throwing up again and sobbing.  Szayel sighed.  “Yeah,” Luppi said.  “Lots of that.”

There was a knock at the door and they looked up to see the white haired Dr. Ishida who was primary on the group.  “Luppi, you were the last of the group in this Dollhouse?  Can I get you to come to a room, just nearby, so we can run tests on you?”

Luppi looked to Szayel who nodded with a smile.  “Oh, okay,” he said and followed him, with Riruka following him.  Gin turned to Szayel again.

“Would you come with me to check in on everyone?  I need to send a report up the chain on them and the conditions they’re in,” Gin said with a nod.

“Illfordt, honey, will you be okay for a while?” he called into the bathroom.

“Um hum, go on sis,” he muttered before throwing up again.

Szayel nodded and took Gin’s hand, surprising the silver haired officer, but he didn’t resist.  “Let’s see, I’m most worried about Ichigo, of course, but I think Ulquiorra is the most damaged besides him.”

Gin opened the next door where the dark haired young man was sitting in the chair staring out the window with his pale hands knitted together in his lap.  He turned and blinked vivid green eyes at the pair of them.  Szayel came forward and sat down on the bed beside him.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” he said softly.  “Have you met Gin Ichimaru?”

Ulquiorra looked at him and nodded.  “Yes, he’s with the shinigami.  When will we leave here?” he asked, quietly and in a voice utterly devoid of emotion.

“Soon, soon.  Can you tell me about yourself?  If you feel up to it, of course,” Gin said, flipping open his notebook and clicking the recorder in his pocket on.

Ulquiorra nodded.  “My name is Ulquiorra Cifer.  I am now seventeen years old.  I was kidnapped in Belgium when I was fourteen.  I was a street kid, orphan with no parents.  It honestly wasn’t that much different than the life I’d been used to.  I’ve slowly declined the drugs the Matron offered over the last few years.  I do not need them.  I have no reason to fight with my situation.  I am pleased it has changed, but it will not matter.  I have no one, and I am no one.”  He paused and sipped the cup of water on the tray table.  “I was named Coeur a la Crème.  Ironic.”  He looked down at his hands and Gin saw the barest flicker of a tremor.  “I’d like to be alone, now,” he said and turned to face the window again.

Szayel nodded.  “We’ll let you rest, Ulquie.”

As they stepped out Szayel took a breath.  He closed the door and shook his head.  “He’s turned off his emotions.  A couple years ago, he came to me and told me he quit ‘feeling’ anything at all, and it was better.  Since then, he hasn’t needed the drugs as often, and he hasn’t shed a tear or felt anything, from what I can tell,” he said, his golden eyes reflecting the sadness that it brought to his heart.  “Here, next we have Ggio; he was one of the newer boys.”

They opened the door gently to the next room and Gin knew that the boy in the bed was completely miserable.  He was curled up on the bed with a blanket.  If Gin didn’t know better, he would have thought the boy had a bad case of the flu.  He looked up as Szayel entered, though and sat up with teary eyes.  He had longish brown hair cut around his face to frame it, and large eyes. 

“Szayel, I feel bad,” he moaned.

“Aw, sweetie, I know,” he said and sat down beside him and hugged him against him.  He ducked his head into Szayel’s chest.  “Just the drugs getting out of your system.  They had you on a lot, sweetie.  Almost as much as my Ichi-baby,” he said, stroking Ggio’s dark hair.  “My friend Gin is talking to everyone to get information on how they got into this place.  Do you feel like talking?”

Ggio nodded and looked up at Gin warily.  Szayel reached over and handed him a tissue.  “My name’s Ggio Vega, and I was born in Spain.  I’m seventeen, and they grabbed me last year. I was running away from home, my family is messed up, and I was hitchhiking, and this woman stopped a white van.  I thought it was a football mom or something, you know.  But the minute I got into the seat, she stabbed this needle in my neck, and I woke up…there,” he said, and his eyes went wide for a moment.

Gin smiled.  “You don’t have to talk about that part yet.  I’m just getting names and where everyone is from.”

Ggio nodded.  “Szayel?  Can you stay?” he asked, looking up at him.

“Oh, sweetie, I’ll be back.  We’re going to see Findorr next, okay?  I’ve got to check on everyone,” he said, patting Ggio’s head gently.

Ggio nodded.  “Okay, gonna take a nap then, Szay.”

Szayel smiled and covered him up gently before stepping out of the room with Gin.  He took a deep breath.  “It’s hard seeing them like this.  I’ve become so close to all of them, you know.”

Szayel knocked gently on the next door and a voice called to enter.  “Fin?” he said softly as he went in.

“Szay,” the blonde said as he turned around.  He was tall with long blonde hair and a long, lean body.  “How are you?”

“Findorr, I should ask you?” Szayel said, going over and hugging the robed young man.  “Any symptoms?”

Findorr nodded.  “Dizzy a lot, nauseous.  You know.”

“This is Gin Ichimaru, he’s the one that got everyone out, and he’s getting down information on everyone.  Up to talking a bit?” he said with a smile.

He nodded and sat down on the bed slowly.  “Yeah, Findorr Calius.  I’m nineteen now, almost three years there, Crepe Suzette, sounds so exotic, doesn’t it?”  He smiled.  “Yeah, I grew up in south Wales, actually.  I was on a traveling trip through Europe, backpacking, when I got waylaid one night in Germany and woke up in hell.  No one to look for me, my parents died a few years before, and I had been living with relatives.  No one to bother with me.”

Gin nodded and looked at Szayel.  Szayel leaned over and kissed Findorr on the temple.  “Oh, love, I’ll be back.  I’m taking Gin to check in on everyone.  I want to know how you are, and he needs information.  So you let me know if you need me, okay?” he said smiling at him.

“Yeah, thanks, Szay,” he said quietly and lay back in his bed again as they left.

Szayel was finding this harder than he anticipated.  He nodded to Gin and knocked on the next room and entered a moment later.  “Tesla?” he called.

Immediately, Szayel let out an oomph sound and laughed lightly.  “Oh, sweet, there, there, how are you?”

The young blonde haired man looked up with one teary eye.  The other eye had a patch over it.  “Szayel, oh is it true?  I can’t…I can’t even think right now, I feel like I’m going to wake up from a dream!”

“Sweet, shh, hey, it isn’t a dream.  We’re all here, come, sit down,” Szayel said, and led him to the bed and sat beside him.  “I’m taking Gin around with me to see everyone, make sure you’re not in too poor a state from the drug withdrawal.  Illfordt is getting quite familiar with the toilet in our room.”

Tesla smiled.  “A little sick, and a lot fuzzy headed,” he said, rubbing his head.

“Can you tell Gin here about yourself?” Szayel asked, stroking his short blonde hair.

“Yeah,” he said, looking to Gin who smiled at him.  “Tesla Lindocruz.  I’m eighteen, I think, and been there about three years.  I got the funny name, Brioche Perdu.  They just called me Perdu most the time.  Anyway, I was alone, a runaway on the streets of Portugal, where I grew up.  I was on drugs and I don’t think my parents even knew I was gone, they were both drug addicts.  Then this night, I saw this woman and I woke up and I was far away.  I thought it was a bad drug trip.  It wasn’t.”

Szayel hugged him again.  “Hey, don’t worry, honey.  It will be okay.  I’ve got to go see about Luppi.”

“Luppi’s here?” he said, looking up.

“He is,” Szayel said, standing.  “I’ll be back soon, you rest, okay?  They said about two weeks for the withdrawal to be done.”

Tesla nodded and snuggled into the covers as Szayel left with Gin.  He looked to Gin.  “We’re more like a family, you know.  We had to be.  We had to take care of each other because they weren’t going to take care of us,” he said sadly as he knocked on Luppi’s room.

Luppi was sitting in the middle of the bed, still in the pajama pants but with a hospital gown on.  He looked up and smiled at them.  “Szayel, hey.  They just got done draining me of blood, I swear, how many tests do they run?”

Szayel sat down in the chair by the bed and smiled.  “A terrible lot, love.  I brought Gin by to talk to you a bit.  Would you want to tell him about yourself?”

Luppi nodded.  “Well, my name is Luppi Antenor.  Last year, just after my sixteenth birthday, I left the orphanage I grew up in to look for work, up around Tokyo.  I don’t know who my family was, I was left on a church doorstep as a baby, don’t know why, it wasn’t like I looked different _then_ , that didn’t happen until puberty,” he said, picking at the fuzzy pants.

Gin frowned and glanced at Szayel.  “Luppi is intersexed.  He has Klinefelter Syndrome, which means he didn’t ever develop normally like a typical boy, hence his feminine features.  He even has the cutest little breasts,” Szayel said, reaching out and patting Luppi’s chest gently.  Luppi wrinkled his nose at him. 

“You and your breast fixation.  You just want them,” he said with a smirk.

“But of course, love, I was supposed the get implants by now…” Szayel said, hugging Luppi against him affectionately and ruffling his dark hair.  “Then I’d have my own breasts to play with.”

Luppi blushed a bit.  “You’re terrible, you know that?”

“You love me anyway,” Szayel said with a smile.

“Can I ask something?” Luppi said suddenly, looking up.  “I…I just want to know if I should trust them, this Riruka, Wonderweiss, and Yukio, they seem so nice.  Too nice.”

“Sweets, there are people who are just nice and good people, you know,” Szayel said with a sigh.  “I hate to leave you, but I should check on Ichigo.”

Luppi winced.  “He’s being weaned off the drugs too?  How many people has he punched?”

Szayel smirked. “He’s too sick right now to do much punching since his withdrawal kicked in.  You know they had him doped up to the point he could barely move for the last few months.”

“Go see to him, Szay.  You’re the only one he listens to when he comes down,” Luppi said, patting his hand gently.

Szayel smiled and got up, and closed the door as Luppi snuggled down into the bed again.  He took a deep breath and looked across at Ichigo’s door.  “May as well do this, now, put it off long enough,” he said softly.

“You act like you’re afraid of how he’ll be this time, he calmed down directly for you before,” Gin said, looking up at him.

“He’s coming down still, he’ll get worse.  He was on such a high dose.  He’s going to be in misery for days…” Szayel said, opening the door to Ichigo’s room. 

Ichigo was flopping back and forth on the bed restlessly.  He was covered in sweat and looked horrible.  His already pale skin had taken on a lighter pallor even still. 

“Ichi-baby,” Szayel said and went to sit down beside him.  “How are you honey?” he asked, stroking Ichigo’s damp hair from his face.

“I feel like shit,” he muttered, grabbing Szayel’s hand and pressing it against his face.  “I just want to sleep but I can’t sleep, and when I close my eyes…the things I see…”

Szayel rubbed his face softly.  “I brought Gin with me; he’s getting information on everyone to find their families.”

Ichigo glanced at him with a look that could have killed lesser beings.  Gin flinched involuntarily.  The boy had one hell of an intensity about him.  “I don’t know.  It’s been five years.  I don’t know what’s anything anymore.  I lived in Karakura Town.  I was fourteen, and I just remember this man coming up to me on a playground…and then, it just all went black and I woke up and…”  Ichigo shook his head.  “I just know my last name is Kurosaki.  I can’t remember a lot from before the Dollhouse.”

Gin nodded slowly.  “That helps, I’ll try and find your family, along with the others,” he said, looking up with what he hoped was a hopeful smile.

Ichigo nodded.  “I don’t care about them, I just…I just want us to be together, you know, we’re enough.”

Szayel smiled.  “I know, but honey, if we found out they were out there…”

“If I had anyone out there, why didn’t they look for me?” Ichigo said, scowling and pulling the stuffed lion to his chest.  “Kon’s the only thing I have left.  And I know my mother isn’t out there.  I know that.  I don’t remember why I know that, but I know it.  No one else cared to look.”

Gin sighed and nodded.  He smiled.  “I’ll leave you two,” he said and stepped out the door.  He looked up as a new nurse came by with a tray and smiled at him.  She was a cute thing, violet eyes and hair, and she had a pretty purple bow around her neck like a scarf with her scrubs.  He thought that was strange and he was about to follow her when another nurse came up to talk to him.  He didn’t think much of it.  Then he heard one of the boys scream, and looked up to see the new nurse walking quickly away.  Gin wanted to follow her, but instead he took off toward the room where the scream came from, Tesla’s room.

Tesla was crouched in the corner with his hands over his head and shaking violently muttering under his breath.  Szayel came up behind Gin as he went into the room and knelt in front of the boy.

“Tesla, what happened?” he asked.

Tesla looked up with frightened eyes and shook his head.  “It was the Watcher, she was the Watcher, she was here, and she came in and she was standing over my bed and smiling at me!  She said…she said…god would come for his sacrifice soon enough and I screamed and she ran away!” he said, sobbing. 

Szayel knelt down beside Gin and Tesla leapt into his arms.  Szayel looked at Gin.  “The Watcher, she was like the scout, the spy, she was the one they sent out to keep watch and guard outside when we were moving.  She…she always smiled and I think she enjoyed watching us.”

“She have purple hair?” Gin said, running a hand over his head. “Purple bow?”

Szayel frowned.  “Yeah…how do you…”

“I saw a new nurse, I thought it was strange, the bow, you know, but Nurse Orihime came up to ask me a question…” Gin said, standing up.  “We’re going to have to find a more secure location.”

“I might have a solution,” came a new voice.  Gin turned to see Riruka standing beside a young man with blonde hair.  “I’m Yukio Hans Vorarlberna, and I own the Executor building.  Perhaps we can work out something to protect these boys?” he said, tilting his head to the said and staring at Gin.


	4. Doll Clothes

Gin secured a private conference room on the floor with the rooms and had a couple other people come in, including his lieutenant, Izuru Kira.  Not too long after they got the room set up, Gin’s partner, and head of the Vice division, arrived with his lieutenant, Renji Abarai.  Gin specialized in the undercover vice operations, and Byakuya tended to the busts and the uniformed officers that worked for the Shinigami organization.  Dr. Retsu Unohana came with him, as one of the first responders on the cleanup of the scene.  Dr. Ishida, of course, arrived, and had his son, another doctor at the hospital named Dr. Uryuu Ishida, and the head nurse for the ward, Orihime Inoue.  Orihime was also Uryuu’s wife, which made stationing the pair with the “dolls” an easy choice.  While Ryuken Ishida’s specialty was trauma, his son’s specialty was psychiatry.  Gin also asked Szayel to attend the meeting to speak on behalf of the victims.

Gin sat at one end of the table with Szayel on his right and Yukio on his left.  Beside Yukio, Riruka sand and watched everyone around them.  Beside her sat Dr. Ishida and the his son, Uryuu, and his wife, Orihime.  Beside Szayel, Retsu had sat down, followed by Kira and Renji.  At the other end of the table, Byakuya had taken up his position. 

Once everyone was gathered and quieted after brief greetings, Gin stood up and began.   “I know that some of you are a bit out of the loop, but we hope this meeting will fix that.  In front of each of you is a full report on the medical condition and the initial interviews I’ve done with each of the victims of this ring.  The most worrisome part of this situation is this appearance of one of their captors in the hospital impersonating a nurse.  In the file, we have all the details that Szayel has been able to provide us with.  Unfortunately, despite having a clearheaded person among the victims hasn’t made it a whole lot easier.  We do however know more than we would have.”

There was a silent moment as everyone flipped through the documents they had been provided with.  Yukio arched a brow and pulled out a Nintendo DS from his pocket and started to play the device quietly, while Riruka just watched what everyone was doing almost nervously.  Szayel had an almost pained expression on his face as he looked over the medical reports of each of his boys, as he’d come to think of them.  It was obvious that both Byakuya and Renji, who had not viewed the official medical files yet were somewhat shocked.  Ryuken, of course, knew the contents as he had compiled them.

“As you can see, these young men all have suffered severe and long term abuse of various sorts.  Broken bones were common, especially smaller bones like fingers and toes, and several have had cracked facial bones as well.  Tesla has use of only one eye, but Szayel says that he had already lost use of his eye when he was picked up to be trained for work in the Dollhouse.  The others seem to have physically well cared for, aside from the massive dosages of drugs in their systems,” Gin continued.  “We know, both from the interviews, to searches by our people, almost all of these boys have no living family left, which is perhaps one of the reasons they were targeted by this Sternritter organization.”

Byakuya looked over at Szayel.  “You chose to go without these drugs?” he asked, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

Szayel nodded.  “As I told Gin, it was a matter of taking care of my brother at first.  There was no way out.  The Enforcer was there, and the Watcher and the Matron would punish us severely if we tried.  In a way, the drugs weren’t necessary to keep us from escaping.  However, they were necessary to keep the boys docile.  No one comes to a brothel to fight with their…” Szayel stopped, chewing on his lip.  “Not this kind of brothel, anyway.  I heard of others that kept their…their…sluts aware and awake, chained of course, for the clients who wanted to have them fight back.  The Matron would often tell us that if we were bad at our jobs, and our clients dropped off, they’d sell us to one of those places.  And of course they did, now and then.  There were many boys who left like that,” he said, swallowing hard and looking at his hands.  “Of course, if someone got to be too much trouble and stopped earning…that was even worse.”

Byakuya, seemingly satisfied by the answer, looked back over the folder.  Renji looked up, brushing his vibrant red hair from his eyes.  “You mention that the boys were trained first.  What exactly does that mean?”

Szayel visibly paled.  “When a boy was first brought in, he was resistant, who wouldn’t be?  Even with the drugs, they’re not a ‘good dolly’ as the Matron put it.  We had to do what was on the card in our rooms.  I’m sure you recovered them; they were the place cards that sat on the side table.  We all had characters we played; I guess you could call it that.  So, first, for a boy to be good, they had to be broken.  This amounted to intense…intense…”  Szayel blanked out for a second again, his golden eyes almost seeming to dilate completely as he remembered.  “Intense torture of many sorts.  It lasted from a week to three months depending on the strength of the boy’s will.  We never saw anything during this period, the entire time, however long it was, was spent blindfolded and deafened, and mostly gagged, unless our mouth was being used, of course…”   Again, he seemed to space out and shook his head.  “Once broken, they were taken to the Dollhouse and given a name and a card.  Their room was decorated to reflect both, and clients began coming to see us.”

“You said that the top earner disappeared every six months, and no one ever spoke of it again?” Kira asked, looking over the notes Gin had typed up.

“Every six months, on the solstice, whoever was the top earner simply disappeared, and if we asked about them we were ignored.  The boys that were sold off, either to buys like Luppi, or to other brothels, the Matron and the others would gloat over them being taken away and threatened us with their fate.  The top earner…they were never spoke of again,” he said sadly.

Gin nodded.  “Well, you have the short of it, now our problem is we have eight victims who may still be in danger by this organization.  We have no safe houses made for this type of situation.  Yukio has come up with a possible solution.”

At his name, the blonde haired Yukio looked up from his game, carefully paused it and put it back in his sling pack at his side.  “Yes, I own the Executor Building, which has several empty apartments.  The top level, where Riruka, I, Wonderweiss, and Chad live has one empty apartment.  These apartments are very large and would easily accommodate eight to ten people comfortably.  They are not equipped with walls, but panels could be put in for some privacy, but from what I understand, the group is particularly close to each other.  I would posit that the easiest solution, given that Luppi is already familiar with us, that using our building as a safe house would be most efficient.  The lower levels have open apartments and officers could easily take up temporary residence in them.” 

Yukio nodded, reached in his pack, and pulled his game back out and returned to it quietly.  Everyone blinked for a minute but nodded.  Byakuya looked at the pair.  “Gin explained how you bought out Luppi,” he said slowly.

Riruka smiled.  “Yes, I would have bought all the dears, but they would not let me.”

Everyone nodded, glancing at the report on Luppi and what Gin had found.  Gin looked toward the two doctors, the nurse and Retsu.  “Considering the precarious medical condition all eight are in, we think it is best for someone to stay in the same apartment as the victims if possible.  Dr. Ishida recommended Dr. Ishida the younger and his wife, Orihime, who has been a nurse here on Ward 3 for the Dolls.  Retsu of course, could also be on hand, as our in house medic and medical examiner.”

Byakuya nodded.  “This sounds reasonable, but I want you in the apartment with the group, Gin.”

Gin blinked and looked up.  “Mah…I thought that I would be going to a new assignment, Kuchiki, after all, the undercover work is my…”

Byakuya shook his head.  “No, I’ve talked to Director Yamamoto and he agrees.  You’ve had the closest contact with all the victims from the beginning, and it would be best to not expose them to too many new faces too quickly.  Moving them this early is already going to be dangerous, let alone having them get used to new people.  No, you should stay in the apartment with the group and Dr. Ishida and Ms. Inoue.”

Gin wanted to argue the issue.  Dealing with the victims was not his part of the job.  However, if the Director has decided, there was no changing the issue.  He smiled broadly and nodded.  “Of course, it makes sense.”

Byakuya turned to Yukio.  “We’ll send a crew to your apartment within the hour,” he said to the top of the man’s head.  He nodded, stood and began to walk off, followed by Riruka who waved at them shyly as she left.

“He’s an odd duck,” Renji muttered.

“I did a little research on them,” Byakuya said, having not been bothered by the unusual mannerisms during the meeting.  “He’s some sort of prodigy when it comes to computers, some say a savant of some sort.  His maternal grandparents raised him after he got a diagnosis of autism at a young age, of course, before he showed the aptitude with computers.  He started getting noticed by computer companies at eleven years old after he programmed a game he entered in this young programmer contest.  He now runs his own business and is quite successful and wealthy.”

Everyone nodded and Byakuya looked at Renji and Izuru.  “Kira, Abarai, I want you two to go with Dr. Uryuu Ishida and Ms. Inoue and get the things they need from their home and meet me back at the Executor building in two hours.  Gin, I want you to head back to station and do the interview on this Candace and see if you can find out any information on the missing victims on the six month cycle.  We need to know exactly why they were here, too.  See what you can find out.”

Byakuya stood up and nodded and everyone else headed out to attend to their orders.  Gin sat for a moment beside Szayel until the pink haired man put his hand on Gin’s. 

“You’ll be fine with us, you know,” he said softly, smiling Gin.

“Yah, that’s what ya say, but I’m no good with people,” Gin said.  “I’d rather it be someone else.”

Szayel shook his head.  “You’re the first person any of my boys have had comfort them.  It has to be you,” he said as he stood up to go prepare the others for the move later in the day.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Gin wondered what he would find in the interview room.  He’d already heard that this one had spit on and tried to bite a couple of the officers when they refused to allow her to “just pay her fine” and leave.  He thumbed through the file. This wasn’t going to be fun.  He sighed and opened the door, clicking the button for the recording devices installed in the room to come on.  The woman at the table turned and glared at him.

“Who the hell are you?” she growled.  “Are you going to let me out?  Look, I’ve got the money; I’ll pay whatever it is.”

Gin arched a brow.  “Captain Gin Ichimaru, Ms. Catnipp.  Catnipp?  Is that even a real name?” he said, looking up at her.  Candace stared at him.  He sighed.  “Let’s see here.  You are the illegitimate daughter of Charles Rutherford, a deceased American billionaire, wow.   Ah, I see that daddy was known for being a bit of a…hedonist.  Let me guess, you did what you want and had dad’s credit card?” Gin said with a grin.  “Looks like daddy died and left you a nice, fat trust fund, along with all his other babies he never acknowledged.”

“Listen you perverted old man, I am rich.  You can’t hold me here.  I don’t have a criminal record, and you have nothing on me,” she said, looking away, keeping her arms crossed over her chest.

Gin sighed.  “You have no record because your father had it expunged all the time, and most of it was while you were underage.  I can’t even guess how many times you’ve paid your way out.”

She shrugged.  “I’m my daddy’s daughter, I guess.  I like to do what I want.  I do whatever feels good and makes me happy.”

“Well, you know, maybe we can deal.  I mean, you’d have to do something for me, though,” Gin said, realizing that he was going to have to approach this one another way.  She didn’t seem bothered by anything she’d done, she just wanted out of trouble.

She tilted her head to the side and smiled.  “Sure.  I mean, the only reason I joined the Sternritter is I could do what I wanted and no one could tell me not too.  Will this get me out of here?”

Gin shook his head, leaning back in the seat.  “Mah, may, I dunno, we’d have to see what you could tell us, especially about why someone named the Watcher showed up at the hospital.”

Candace’s eyes lit up.  “Oh, she was there?  They’re going to get the little bitch back, you know.”

Gin tried to look placid.  “Oh?  Why would they go to the trouble of getting anyone back?”

“You don’t get it yet, but you will.  These people aren’t after money, they aren’t after power, they’re fucking _nuts_ ,” she said with a smirk.

Gin shook his head.  “I don’t understand.”

She shook her head, running a hand through her hair again.  “I didn’t buy into the shit, but I pretended to. I could beat the shit out of the brats that got outta line, and if I really wanted, I got to have at the ones they tossed out because they were shit earners.  That was fun,” she said with a faraway glance that said she was obviously fond of what she was remembering.  “I didn’t believe the old bastard was the next messiah or anything.”

Gin frowned and shook his head.  “Pardon me?”

“See, these people, they have this leader.  Names Yhwach.  Creepy fucker, man.  He thinks he’s the next messiah or some shit.  Some of us didn’t buy it, we did it for the money but we still had to pretend to pay homage to him or the ones that do believe the guy would get all pissy.  Probably the creepiest one is the Embalmer.  I think she belongs in the damn looney bin…” she said, shaking her head.

“The Embalmer?” Gin said, his eyes widening slightly.

“Oh yeah, see I don’t know all the details, half the time I slept through his sermons, but he thinks that by drinking the blood of his ‘chosen child’ or some shit he revitalizes himself for six months.  So, every six months, the top earner in the Dollhouse gets carted off to his secret abode, hung up on a wheel, and has every bit of blood drained out of him while Yhwach does some ceremony over it.  The blood from one body lasts him six months, because he freezes it and shit, and drinks one glass each day mixed with these ‘magical herbs’ and does these ‘spells’ over it.  Crazy mother fucker, man.  Crazy.  Next to him the Embalmer is the next one, cuz, see he keeps the bodies.  He says they’re ‘noble and holy’ sacrifices.  They’re all on display.  Giselle is one creepy ass bitch.  She talks to the bodies as she’s embalming them, touching them, muttering over them.  Whatever she does makes them all translucent and weird looking.  Then, he encases them in these clear vaults, and each time he drains another sacrifice, he offers a prayer at each one thanking them for what they’ve given him.  Fucker really believes he’ll die without drinking the blood,” she said, almost chuckling.  “They don’t care what I do as long as I do my job.  So you know.  Drugs, sex, rock and roll, all that.”

Gin swallowed bile rising in his throat at what she was saying.  “How does he choose the sacrifices?”

“Oh something about being the boy with the highest allure and spirit, so you know.  But he’s got a special place for that orange haired brat,” she said, rubbing her chin.  “Son of a bitch decked me once or twice when I was helping out with the Matron after he’d gone off on a client.  He would come by, actually come to the Dollhouse, to see him, watch the cameras down in the payment office where I was, while clients were with him.  Perverted old man.  Bet he beat one off when he went back to his little crypt or whatever it was,” she said, shrugging.

“Where is his base?” Gin asked, starting to feel a rising in his chest.

“Only one that knows that is his second, his ‘High Priest’, and the Embalmer.  The rest of us were blindfolded when we were taken there, he didn’t trust anyone except those two,” she said with a shrug.

Gin got up and looked back for a second.  “So he’ll try to get Ichigo back.”

She smirked.  “Oh, he’ll send every single one of the people he can to get him back.  He thinks he’ll die without his blood.  He thinks if the ceremony isn’t done on the solstice, the blood is spoiled, and worthless, and he’d have to wait until the next one.  He doesn’t think he could wait for his ‘elixir of life’ as he calls it.”

Gin nodded and left, listening as she yelled behind him about the deal and how long before she could leave.  He shut the door with a hollow and haunted look on his face as he headed back to the hospital.  It was beginning to look like staying close to the boy was going to be more important than ever.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

 

Several hours later, Gin stood in the absolutely huge, open apartment and shook his head.  The transfer had gone without incident, though they’d had to group everyone together and it was only with Szayel’s help that calm was maintained in the van they used to transport them.  When they’d arrived at the Executor building, the apartment had been set up with partitions between sets of cots in the back.  A sliding screen had been installed between the communal bedroom and the rest of the apartment.  A large couch, chairs, and lamps had been set in the living room along with a large TV with a DVD player and a game system.  A computer had been set up over to the side on a simple desk with a chair.

The kitchen had been fully stocked with foods of all kinds, both premade and prepackaged, and ingredients for about anything someone wanted to cook.  Gin knew that the shinigami would have brought some things, but he suspected that Yukio and the others that lived in the building had provided a lot of the things here.  The dining area had a large table with eight chairs, and there was a bar off to the side with four stools to it. 

In the middle of the living room was a huge pile of clothes and textiles of all sorts, men’s, women’s, children’s, sheets, blankets, stuffed animals, and Gin couldn’t tell what else.  It was a ton of stuff, and while he guessed they’d emptied the lost and found at the station, this was far more than could have come from there.  He guessed that the people in the building had provided for this as well.  He smiled to himself.  It seemed the initial suspicion he was received with had to do more with their tight knit community than anything else. 

He looked up as the boys that were well enough to get around started sifting through the items on the floor, while Szayel, Uryuu, and Orihime got those suffering the most from the withdrawal symptoms settled into beds.  Luppi, who had been staying next door with Wonderweiss, had decided to stay there since he liked the quiet it offered.  Gin had agreed as long as there was an officer stationed in the hallway at all times.  Being on the upper floor had advantages of course.  He saw Wonderweiss was going through the clothes and going around and handing seemingly random articles of clothing to the different boys.  Some were wary of him, but Luppi told them he was okay.  Of course, Ichigo had chosen the farthest, corner bed and told everyone except Szayel to kindly “fuck off”. 

Gin found himself leaning against the bar and watching Wonderweiss hand out the strangest combinations of clothes to people with amusement.  Luppi talked a lot around him, which was encouraging, to say the least. 

Riruka came and hopped up on the bar beside him and watched.  “So what’s the deal with him?  I mean, the whole deal?” Gin said as he watched.

She smiled back at him.  “Well, we went to Europe a few years ago to deal with Yukio’s family, his father’s side is Dutch-German, and while we were in Germany, we ran into Wonderweiss.  The poor boy could get no peace.  He had a serial killer for a father.  The ‘Dresden Ripper' and 'Chikatilo of Germany' was what he was called.  A friend of Yukio’s family was taking care of him, but she’d gotten to the end of her rope.  Constant nosy reporters, death threats, tabloid stories, all because Wonderweiss was the killer’s son.  Wonderweiss himself witnessed many of the murders, actually.  He was a child, he couldn’t do anything.  So to this day, he has a heart of gold.  He wanted to help immediately when he found out about Luppi.  Of course, he has talent with computers, so Yukio saw this as a great benefit.  So we brought him back to Japan with us.  He picked up the language and customs incredibly fast, which surprised most people, but not me and Yukio,” she said with a smile.

Gin tipped his head.  “Why not you two?”

“We’re both on the spectrum, different places, of course, but because of that we know things about Wonderweiss that other people wouldn’t notice.  His lack of speech doesn’t indicate lack of intelligence.  Most people make that assumption, and it is a terrible wrong one,” she said with a smile.  “Yukio doesn’t like people, and he can’t stand the idea of sex.” 

“I thought you two were together?” he said, glancing at her.

“We are.  We have a romantic relationship, not a sexual one,” she said, kicking her feet thoughtfully back and forth as Wonderweiss put Findorr in a pink tutu with a pair of black denim jeans under it and a bright yellow long sleeved shirt with black stars on it.  “Sex isn’t necessary for everyone you know,” she said, looking around.

Gin nodded.  “I never thought of it, I suppose.  I haven’t been in a relationship in a while, so I guess I forget what it’s like,” he said with a smirk.  “I bust prostitution rings and brothels and madams, so I have to be flexible with what I portray myself as,” he said as he watched the goings on.  Wonderweiss had found a bright green bandana to replace the hospital patch on Tesla’s eye, and managed to convince him to wear a frilly looking white pirate shirt and a pair of leopard print leggings.  It was impressive, because he did all this without uttering a word to any of them.

Riruka nodded.  “What do you go for anyway?” she asked.  “I mean, boys, girls, both, what?”

Gin smirked.  “Ah, what’s here,” he said, motioning to his chest.  “The outside doesn’t matter,” he said thoughtfully as Wonderweiss continued his mission to dress all the hospital gown wearing dolls.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

A large, heavy figure moved through the shadows that surrounded the building known as the Executor.  Cang Du enjoyed this type of work for the Sternritter.  He honestly didn’t give two shits about the nutcase that ran the place, but it was a job.  A long time ago, too long, he sometimes thought, he’d been a member of a triad family.  He’d been a good bodyguard and enforcer for them.  Then, the entire family was decimated in a feud, and in the end, instead of dying, he went independent.  He’d worked for a lot of shady folks, but no steady work. When he met with Quilge Opie, and been offered a long term Enforcer position he’d taken it immediately. 

As a member of the Sternritter, he usually was the one that got to track down the bastards that damaged the dolls.  It wasn’t that they cared about them getting beat up or slapped around, but doing so required additional payment and compensation.  Woe was to the client that permanently disfigured or killed one of the dolls.  He’d taken care of one or two of those in the years he’d worked there.  He also helped with body disposal and transport of those that were sold to other brothels, and of course, the bi-annual transport of the ‘chosen child’.  That ‘chosen child’ was the reason he was sneaking around outside this building.

He spotted the woman he was meeting, the Watcher.  Now, she was a crazy bitch.  She had that look to her eyes that just exuded insane.  She was one of those that bought the messiah bullshit that the leader of the Sternritter preached.  Meninas had lost her mind, from what he could tell.  He knew she’d grown up in Ireland, and when her parents, older sister, and grandfather died at around the same time, she decided God had it in for her, so she needed to find a ‘savior’ to protect her from God.  She found Yhwach.  Now she had bought whole hog into his bullshit, and was always prattling on about him. 

“Hey, Meni, what’s happening so far?” he said as he approached.  She was wearing dark clothes and a hat to cover her obnoxiously dyed purple hair.

“Good evening, Enforcer,” she said formally, bowing at him.  He rolled his eyes.  “They’ve moved the Chosen Child into that building, I don’t know what level.  The rest of our sweet ones are in there as well.  However, there are many guards.”

Cang nodded as he looked over the building.  It wasn’t going to be easy to get into a place like that, especially if they were smart and moved them to the top level.  He sighed.  They only had two weeks until the Solstice.  This was not going to be easy at all…


	5. Dancing Dolls

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edits coming next, a few minor edits to previous chapters have been done.

“Rukia!” came the shrill cry from the entryway to the motel.

Rukia, dressed in her work uniform, sighed.  She ran a hand over her short black hair and headed out of the break room to see that she had customers.  In front of the desk was one of her regulars, a girl with green short hair and a matching green mask that covered the lower half of her face.  She wore a simple, short dress and flat boots.  With her was a slightly blushing man of about twenty five or so.

“Ah, Luna, welcome back.  How long?” she said, getting behind the register.

Luna, or rather Mashiro was her real name, looked at the young man with her.  “What is it sweetheart?  All night or just a couple hours?”

“Um, just a couple hours…” the man said pulling out the notes from his pocket. 

Rukia rang him up and took his money.  She smiled and handed Mashiro the key to one of the rooms.  Mashiro took it and winked, leading the flustered man behind her.  First timer, no doubt, she thought to herself as she turned back to the register.  They weren’t quite full yet, but she was sure several couples would make their way in before night fell as well as a few more of the working girls and boys with their clients.  The Dangai was a love motel, of course.

Rukia ran the place but it was owned by her brother in law, Byakuya.  Well, brother, really, as she’d had her named changed to Kuchiki when her sister Hisana married him.  It had been done so that if anything happened to them, she would inherit the fortune.  Her sister was unable to bear children, so Rukia would have been the next heir to his clan.  She’d gotten a degree in business and was more than capable of handling one small love motel.  She had about twenty employees, and her brother, since he was on the police force, made sure she was safe. 

“Rukia! You’re on duty tonight!” came a voice from the door and she smiled as her boyfriend, Renji came in and leaned on the counter. 

“Yes, yes, where’s Nii-sama?” Rukia asked, sitting on the stool behind the counter and staring across at him.

Renji shrugged.  “Dunno, he told me to come here and do some questioning of some of your regulars.  Any of the street walkers around?”

“Don’t call them that,” Rukia said, rolling her eyes.  “They’re escorts, not street walkers.  And they’re very nice people.  One just went up with a client, but if you hang out, one of the others from the Visored group should be in.  They usually come to stay the night when they can.”

“Alright, babe.  I’ll go have a seat on the couch.  Let me know if they come in,” he said, heading over to the sofas to wait for one of the Visored to come in.

The Visored were more like a family than a group of street walkers.  Renji often joked about what they did for a living, but it wasn’t like they were doing anything illegal.  They were all independent, and were not being whored out by someone else.  They instead lived and stuck together as a way to protect themselves and each other.  Everyone knew that if you messed with one of them, you were in for trouble.  Their sort of leader, a tall, thin blonde femme boy, was a force to be reckoned with when someone hurt his family.  Shinji Hirako was no joke.  He was very effeminate, with manicured nails, make up, and everything short of cross dressing, but his seemingly gentle looks hid a third degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do and a first degree black belt in Karate.  He was also rumored to have trained for a while with Tibetan monks.  Renji had seen what happened to a client that tried to hurt him.  It hadn’t been pretty, for Shinji’s attacker.

“So what do you need the Visored for anyway?  That creepy guy was talking to them a few nights ago,” Rukia said with a wince.

“Oh, Gin?” Renji said, glancing back at her.  “Yeah, they gave Gin some intel and we made one hell of a bust on an illegal brothel.”

As if on cue, the door opened and Shinji came in giggling with a young man.  “Rukia, all night please,” Shinji said, as the man beside him blushed again, then laid out the 12,000 yen for the room.

“Hey, before you go up, Renji wants to talk to you,” Rukia said, handing over the key to Shinji. 

“Oh, okay, hey honey, want to go start that big tub for us?” Shinji said to his client who nodded shyly and went up the stairs.  Shinji reached up and pulled off the white half face mask he wore as he smiled at Rukia.  He was always dressed nicely, but never cross dressed.  He had a feminine style, but enjoyed himself with various styles on and off so he didn’t stick to one.  Lately he was in a samurai kick, so he was wearing floral kusodos and hakama.

“Mashiro brought in a first timer too,” Rukia said with a grin. 

Shinji nodded and went and flopped on the couch opposite Renji.  “Lieutenant,” he said, smirking.

“Hey Shin,” Renji said with a grin.  “How’s business?”

“Fabulous,” he said, grinning. “Lots of tourists.  Now, I can only guess you’re here over the talk I had with Gin recently?”

“Yeah, we busted the Dollhouse,” he said with a nod at him.

Shinji leaned forward wide eyed.  “What was in there?” he asked breathlessly.  Everyone on the street had been talking about it, and a couple of bet pools had been going about it.  Everything from illegal brothel with willing girls, to an underage house.

“Well, eight young men, all drugged and forced into it,” he said, sighing deeply.

“Fuck,” Shinji said, flopping back on the couch dramatically in anger.  “I was hoping it was something else, just a bunch of whores who got convinced that they wouldn’t get caught running a brothel.”

Renji shook his head.  “It’s bad, Shin.  Really bad.  I know you were working with Gin, and I wanted to let you know he’s at the Executor building.”

“The Executor?  Yukio’s building?” Shinji said as he stood up slowly.

“We’re housing the boys there until we can catch the people who did this.  It isn’t just one person, it’s an organized thing, most absurdly, it’s a cult,” Renji said, standing up as well.

Shinji nodded.  “I’ll go out to the Executor tomorrow to see if I can help.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to help any, but I can try.”

“Thanks, man,” Renji said, and shook Shinji’s hand as he headed up the stairs, with a noticeably heavier step then he’d come into the hotel with.

Renji sighed and waved to Rukia as he headed out.  He should go check on Gin and see how everyone in the building was doing.  He winced.  No, he really wasn’t up for that tonight.  He’d just go get a drink at a bar and try to forget this whole horrible ordeal.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Most of the shinigami seemed to adjust pretty easily to their new accommodations.  The rotating guards were helpful, and made sure that no one was on the top floor that wasn’t supposed to be there.  A few of them complained about the strange people living in the building, some of which they never actually saw, they just felt themselves being watched from afar.  Kira, a timid man on his best days, was one of those that felt out of place.  Of course, Izuru Kira felt out of place on his best days as well.  He shivered as he patrolled the hallway.  He turned at the end and blinked.  At the end of the hallway, that strange boy that lived on the top floor was standing in the dark staring at him.  He was almost ethereal in appearance and wearing a long white dress.  Those purple eyes just staring at him.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Shuuhei Hisagi grabbed his ass.  He included a very shrill scream and grabbed the slightly taller dark haired man in a death grip.

“Shit!” Hisagi exclaimed.  “Damn, baby, didn’t mean to scare you!”

Kira got his breathing under control and looked down the hall and the boy was gone.  He looked up at Hisagi with wide eyes for a second before he slapped him on the arm.  “Dammit!  It’s creepy enough without you goosing me like that!”

Hisagi laughed.  “Oh, baby, don’t be like that.  If I got a reaction like that every time I grabbed your tight little ass, I’d do it more often,” he said, placing a kiss on the top of his boyfriend’s head. 

Kira was still clinging to him, though.

Below, Gin showed his badge as he came into the building to the guard and headed to the elevator for the top floor with his suitcase.  He really wasn’t keen on staying in this place. He was ready to get out on a new assignment.  Staying around meant possibly making connections, and connections meant they could be broken.  And broken was something Gin wanted to avoid.

He was about to step onto the elevator when someone yelled out behind him.

“Hey, Shinigami!”

Gin turned and arched a brow at the man, a man with longish brown hair and a scowl on his face.  Beside him stood an annoyed looking woman with darker skin and eyes.

“What?” Gin asked, honestly not in the mood for dealing with anyone.

The man advanced nearly getting in Gin’s face.  He barely changed his expression even so.  “What the hell are you people doing here?  Trying to ruin someone else’s life?  Or just trying to rub it in on how you forced me to waste a fucking year of my life because of your stupidity?  I spent a year with your fucking monitoring device stuck on me for what…for nothing!  Because…”

“Kūgo!” the woman said, coming over and yanking the man away by the arm.  “They aren’t here to bother you, now stop being an ass or you won’t get any for a while.”

“Jackie, but they…” Kūgo said, sounding more like a whipped puppy than anything.

“But they nothing!” Jackie said glaring at him.

Gin cleared his throat.  “Um, yeah, we’ve got a deal with Yukio, ah, talk to him about our presence…” he said, ducking into the elevator and away from the arguing couple.

Kūgo, he thought, to himself.  The name sounded familiar.  He thought he might have been one of the johns picked up a while back when they busted a human trafficking ring.  Sometimes they picked up people that didn’t know they were participating in illegal activities.  Ignorance wasn’t an excuse, though, when it came to punishment.  He sighed and stepped out onto the top floor again.

Another officer checked Gin’s credentials as he came out of the elevator.  So far no one had tried to come into the building that wasn’t supposed to be there, but there was always the chance that it would happen.  He knocked on the door and was let in by Yukio who didn’t look up from his phone as he let him into the room.

“Mah, so where should I lay my cot at?” he asked, glancing around.

Luppi, who was still helping Wonderweiss sort through clothes for everyone looked up. 

“We put your bed down by Ichigo’s on the end.  If anyone has a problem during the night, I bet it will be him,” Luppi said, smiling almost serenely as if that was normal.

Gin shook his head and headed back to where the beds were set up.  Ichigo, still suffering from the withdrawal was curled into a ball on his bed facing the wall.  Gin set his things down across from him.  It was a good place because he could see all the beds from this position, even with the curtains separating them.  Some of the others were still in bed, dealing with the effects.  He knew that it could take weeks before they were all back to some semblance of normal.  He looked up to see Szayel, wearing a light yellow skirt and a blouse that was plain white.  He smiled at them. 

“Gin, sugar, how are you?” he said, looking much more at ease after a couple days being in this new place.

“Well enough, brought my own things to settle in a bit, I guess.  How are all the boys?” he said, glancing around. 

Szayel shrugged.  “I can’t tell a lot yet, some are still sick and coming out of it.  I did find myself some nice clothes, though,” he said spinning.

Gin nodded.  “Yeah, you said you had been transitioning when they kidnapped you.  Will you go back to transitioning?”

“I…don’t know, Gin.  This last few years, being forced to do the things I did, and watch them, I can’t even think of things like hormones or surgery for myself.  I’m happy being who I am for now, a guy that likes to wear dresses, and for now, that’s enough for me, maybe once we’ve all recovered a bit, I don’t know, Gin, but thank you for asking,” he said, smiling gently at him.  “It is very kind of you.  I wish I could answer you.  I…I don’t know myself anymore, so I can’t even begin to think of those things.”

Gin nodded.  “Okay, I’m sure that we can arrange the medical procedures necessary or medications if you did decide to resume transitioning from male to female.”

Szayel smiled again, patting him on the shoulder.  “You know, I might be fine just the way I am in the end.  Maybe not.  I don’t know because I’m numb, Gin.  Really.  This hasn’t hit me and I know it.  It hasn’t hit any of us yet, not really.  When it does…”  Szayel swallowed hard.  “When it does, just don’t let us do what we want to do.  I…I…”

“I won’t let you hurt yourself,” Gin said, softly, smiling in his least creepy fashion at the golden eyed man.  “I won’t let any of you.”

“Good,” Szayel said with a smile.  “Because…because I can’t even be sure I won’t try.”

Gin watched Szayel leave and couldn’t imagine what he and the others were going through.  Ulquiorra sat and stared out the window almost constantly from his bed.  Luppi buzzed around in what he knew was an attempt to keep himself busy.  Tesla, Ichigo, Findorr, and Ggio all seemed content to stay by themselves curled into a ball on their beds.  Illfordt tended to stay with Szayel most the time.  Gin had no idea what to do.

“There’s not much we can do yet,” came Uryū’s voice from beside him.  “I can’t even begin to know what kind of problems this group is going to have.  Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, no doubt.  But it manifests differently for everyone.  From what I’ve seen, Luppi’s avoidant, Ichigo’s aggressive, Ulquiorra is detached, Ggio is anxious, Tesla is also showing severe anxiety, Findorr is starting to show a worrisome level of depression, and Szayel is using his position as a caretaker to avoid his own trauma altogether.  Everyone needs to be on alert for suicidal thoughts and actions, as well as any self-injury.  Once the drugs are gone from their systems, it is hard to say what will happen with them all.  Just, be careful.”

Gin nodded.  “I’m not used ta dealin’ with the victims like this.  I’m…usually gone and on another assignment by the time they are in the hospital.  This is a completely new thing for me,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“You’ll do fine just by being here,” Uryū assured and headed over where Orihime was getting set to do a round of vitals. 

Gin sat down on his bed before laying back on it and locking his hands behind his head.  He was already growing attached to them.  This is why he left quickly. 

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

He saw the redhead come into the bar and grinned.  What more could he have asked for?  Really, this was completely serendipitous.  He managed to get the seat next to the red headed cop as he ordered a drink from the bartender.  He wasn’t going to make contact with him, of course.  He was here for entirely different means.  He was fast, of course, and when the red headed cop got bumped from the side and glanced away, his hand moved quickly over the drink as he reached for the pretzels on the bar.

Quilge Opie was nondescript, and with his hat and dark hair pulled back, really no one noticed him.  He was also good with drugs and other things.  After a few minutes the redheaded cop felt it, and got up to leave, thinking he’d had more than enough to drink.  Opie followed behind as he stumbled home.  Finally, he leaned into an alcove to throw up, and Opie had him.  One good hit to the back of the head and Red was out.  He glanced around and drug him into an alley.

A few minutes later, he emerged, taking the officer’s valuables, but most importantly, his ID badge.  A little manipulation, and he or Cang Du would pass for Lieutenant Renji Abarai. 

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Gin woke with a start for some reason.  He wasn’t sure what it was that woke him but he knew something was wrong.  He shook himself awake and got up, grabbing the yukata from the floor and looked around.  He noticed Ichigo was gone.  He stared for a minute and realized he definitely wasn’t in his bed.  Everyone else seemed asleep, but there were officers stationed outside so he couldn’t have left the apartment.  After a frantic moment he realized he had to be in the bathroom.

He went over to the door and could hear someone sobbing inside.  He reached for the door, finding it unlocked and pushed it open.

“Ichigo?” he said as he entered the dark bathroom.

Silence greeted him for a long moment.  “Fuck off,” came the expected response.  “Just leave me the fuck alone.”

Gin entered anyway, seeing the dark shape leaning against the wall between the toilet and the bath.  “Hey, I don’t think so.”

Ichigo glared at him through the darkness.  “The fuck do you want?” he said finally.

“Mah, just woke up and you were gone away,” Gin said, kneeling carefully in front of him.

“Just…needed to use the bathroom,” he said, turning his head away and wiping wetness from his face, trying not to let Gin see him do it.

Gin nodded.  “Ya know, it’s okay that you’re mad,” Gin told him slowly.  “And it’s okay if ya get sad too.  Ya been through hell.”

“The fuck would you know?” Ichigo said, scowling at him.  “How the fuck would you know what I’ve been through?”

Gin smiled, this time a sad one, that seemingly lacked the eternal creepy quality his smiles normally did.  “See, I had a friend, a girl named Rangiku.  Best friends, really, and I loved her more than anyone could ever love someone.  One day, when we were fifteen, she disappeared.  No word about what happened, she was just gone.  Everyone looked for her, including me.  But see, fifteen year old kids, they shouldn’t go looking the places I was lookin’,” he said, sliding down with his back against the tub and staring away.  “You find things.  And I found the people that took Rangi.  The last thing I remembered was peering into a window and seeing her, nearly naked and swaying on her feet.”

Gin shook his head.  “I woke up in there.  An underage brothel.  They’re not run often, you see, but they pop up now and then.  I went in to save Rangi, and wound up a prisoner myself.  Ain’t that somethin’?” Ichigo was staring at him hard now.

“See, I wasn’t there long, but long enough.  First times go for a lot of money in those places,” Gin’s eyes had gone vacant and he was really not aware of the surroundings.  Ichigo just watched him, entranced.  “Took about two weeks before Byakuya Kuchiki’s team busted the scumbag running the place.  I remember bits and pieces of it, you know, like I had to forget or I couldn’t stand to live with it.  We were free, we were fine, but we weren’t.  Rangi killed herself a few months after they let us out of the hospital.  Slit her wrists and slid under the water in the bath.”

A long silence stretched out in the darkness.  “What…what did you do?” Ichigo finally asked.

Gin turned toward him and smiled.  “First?  Tried to follow her.”  Gin held up his hands and pulled back his sleeve to show the deep scars running down the inside of each forearm.  “I couldn’t stand the thought of being without her.  She was everything to me.  We were both orphans, and grew up together.  She was my sister.”

Another silence.  “Then what?” Ichigo said finally.

“Byakuya Kuchiki came to me in the hospital and asked me if I wanted to make a difference or if I wanted to die.  I told him I wanted to make a difference.  It took three years, but when I was eighteen I was ready, finally.  But those three years were the hardest of my life.  A lot of time, a lot of pain, and a whole lot of tears,” Gin said, staring at the scars on his wrists.  He looked up at Ichigo who was still staring.  “Don’t tell many ‘bout this, because I get attached to…to the ones like me.  Five years of doing this, I go in, get out, and I don’t look back at the victims.  I can’t because I see myself and Rangi in every one of their eyes.  If I get attached, and they escape like Rangi did, it will kill me.  So I leave as quickly as I come.”

Ichigo nodded, understanding slowly what he was saying.  “I-I’m sorry you lost her.”

Gin nodded.  “I honor her every day I do this.  Even though it gives me nightmares for weeks when we bust open an underage brothel, or like this one.”

Ichigo swallowed hard and looked at him.  “Then…we can have nightmares together,” he said slowly, looking at Gin’s blue eyes in the darkness. 

Gin smiled.  “Yeah, I guess we can.”


	6. Doll Joints

The next morning, Ichigo woke up in his own cot and had no real memory of getting there. He hurt still, but his head was less fuzzy than it was so that was a good thing he supposed. He sat up and felt like his whole body was on fire. At least the nausea had passed…for the most part. He stood up and wandered into the living area and dropped into one of the couches. He had no idea what he was going to do. He didn’t want to be here but he had no choice in the matter.

Szayel came up and sat down beside him. “Hey, how are you honey?” he asked softly.

“Better, I…I haven’t been this clear headed in a long time,” he said with a sigh. “I don’t like it.”

Szayel put his arm around him and pulled him tight against him. “I know, honey, I know, but you just gotta get through it. You’ve been hidden away for a long time, and it’s about damn time you come out of that horrific place you’ve been.”

He sighed again and leaned further into Szayel. “But…I don’t know who I am.”

Szayel kissed the top of his head and squeezed him tightly again. “Look, you gotta let these people help you. I want you to know that I trust that Gin.”

“He told me some stuff,” Ichigo said quietly. “Some stuff that I didn’t expect. And…he kinda knows what this is like,” he said without looking up.

Szayel had suspected as much. No matter how hard Gin Ichimaru tried to hide it, Szayel saw it. He was uncomfortable with the victims. He had the look of a man who had learned to wear a mask that was impenetrable.

“He’s lost too,” Szayel said softly to Ichigo.

Ichigo turned his face up and locked his eyes on Szayel’s golden ones. “What do you mean?”

“He’s never come through his. He does this, he helps people like us, because he thinks that it’s a way to deal with it. It isn’t. I saw his arms, but I don’t think he realized I saw them. He’s done what he has to do in order to survive. But it isn’t enough.”

As he spoke, Gin came into the room and nodded to them as he went into the kitchen. He found that Shūhei and Izuru had come in after their shift and were talking animatedly with Riruka. He shook his head because Shūhei had both hands wrapped around Izuru’s waist in front of him. Shūhei was rather affectionate with his boyfriend, but sometimes Gin thought they might tone it down a bit. He excused himself as he went through them to the fridge and found a juice and a couple rice balls someone had made.

He was walking out when someone screamed out. Gin set the juice down and went out of the kitchen and saw that Tesla had woken up out of what was apparently a bad flashback. He was fighting with Szayel and Ichigo as they tried to get him safe.

“I’ll kill them…they have to die!” Tesla was yelling as Szayel managed to finally get hold of the struggling boy. “They have to suffer…they have to!” Tears were streaming down his face and Ichigo had gotten in front of him and was holding his hands as he flailed.

“Tesla!” Szayel said in his ear. “Come on, sweetie. Listen, it’s Szay. We’re safe, remember? I need you to come back to reality.”

After a few moments he was panting and crying into Szayel’s shoulder. Ichigo sighed and got up to let Szayel help him. He saw that Gin stood nearby and watched with his face in that mask. Or was it in a mask? Now that Szayel had said something, Ichigo could see beyond it a bit. There was something there and he wondered…

He shook the thought away and headed into the kitchen and rummaged through the cabinet. He had snagged a t-shirt and shorts when he’d gone through the pile of clothes. He just wanted to be…normal. Just for a bit. He knew it wouldn’t last. He started when he felt someone put arms around his waist. He glanced over his shoulder and smiled at Illfordt a little.

“Hey, you’re looking better,” Ichigo said with a sigh.

“I know I feel better. Not great, but better. What about you?”

Ichigo sighed. “Right now I’m missing the drugs…” he muttered as he left the kitchen and flopped into the sofa and stared at the TV where Luppi and the kid from across the hall were playing a video game. Could they be normal? After what they’d done?

Gin sighed as his earpiece buzzed. He tapped it. “Yeah?”

“Captain Ichimaru, um, there are some people down here that say they were called by us?” came Kira’s voice across the line.

“What? Who would we have called?” he thought. There was a crackling noise and then he heard a familiar voice.

“Gin!” came a voice he hadn’t heard in a while. “Your people called me because they said you had someone I’m looking for.”

“Kisuke Urahara,” Gin said with a sigh. “Why would we call you?”

“Because I have the Kurosaki girls,” he said.

Gin blinked for a moment. That’s why they couldn’t find them. Urahara had taken them to hide them. Urahara was an ex-shinigami agent. He’d left over a disagreement with some of the methods they used. He’d completely forgotten that Urahara was friends with Ichigo’s father, Isshin Kurosaki. He sighed deeply. “Okay, give the earpiece back to Kira, please,” he said with a sigh. Another set of crackles. “Kira, bring him up.”

“Yes, sir, but he’s not alone…” he started.

“I figured as much,” he muttered as he clicked off the headset. He looked up and saw Szayel was leaving Tesla’s bedside.

“Szayel,” Gin called out.

“What is it, sugar?” he said as he came over to him.

“Um, Ichigo’s got visitors coming up,” he said slowly.

Szayel looked for a moment at him. “Family?”

“Some, not his father, but I’m betting Kisuke is bringing his sisters,” he said quietly.

“This could be bad or good,” he muttered as they heard the knock at the door.

Gin headed over and opened the door and saw the familiar Kisuke Urahara, dressed in green and white for some reason, and behind him stood Yoruichi, his ever present friend and confidant. To the side of him stood the two sisters, one with slightly darker hair than the other.

“Wait, let’s talk out here first,” he said and stepped out, nodding to Kira so he could go down.

Kisuke nodded. “They didn’t tell us much; just said that he’d been found and was alive. They couldn’t say more on the phone.”

Gin nodded. “Okay, here’s the thing. He’s not doing great at the moment, and he’s really violent when he gets mad. He’s coming off a severe benzodiazepine addiction, so are all of the others.”

“Others?” Yoruichi asked.

Gin nodded. “You know my division,” Gin said softly.

Kisuke’s normally jovial face changed. “What? That…that can’t be…”

“What’s his division?” Karin asked, frowning deeply.

“Human trafficking, illegal sex work, and child exploitation,” Kisuke said quietly. “Know as the Division of Despair when I was there. No one wanted that division. It was the single hardest one to work.”

Gin nodded. “People don’t stay long. I…well, I’ve got my reasons. We pulled them out of a brothel. There were eight of them. All were kidnapped around fourteen or older. They were drugged into submission, displayed as dolls, and they were only accessible to very elite clientele.”

Kisuke nodded. “Okay,” he said. Gin reached in his breast pocket and pulled out the copy of the page from the book. He handed it to Kisuke.

“What…” he breathed and the girls crowded around him to see.

“That…that’s our brother?” Yuzu asked.

“Well, that was what they advertised him as. The ring was meant to mimic sex with young girls by using boys. Of course, some just liked it because they were boys; there were a lot of things wrong with this. But…there’s something else…” Gin said with a dark look passing his face.

“What?” Karin said. “What is worse than this?”

“The people haven’t been caught. We’ve got one in custody, the woman that took payments. She’s told us that this was some kind of cult, and…their cult leader used this ring to find the most ‘spirited’ boy. He’d then take one every six months, kill them, and drain their blood. Apparently, the guy is crazy and thinks he’s some sort of god,” Gin said as he closed his eyes tightly. “We’ve already had them try to get into the hospital, that’s why we came here.”

Kisuke looked at Yoruichi. “Okay, we’ll deal with that. Can we see him? Let him know we’re here?”

“I’m going to warn you, he’s volatile. I guess he was doped up more than the others because he was violent. He also believes that he was abandoned and no one looked for him from his family. The only thing he wants to do is leave with one of the others, Szayel, and try to hide from the people that had them.”

The four nodded ascent and Gin led them all back into the room. He saw Ichigo’s mop of long orange hair over the back of the sofa. He swallowed and led the four into the dining table off the side of the kitchen. He headed back into the living room and patted Ichigo’s shoulder. Ichigo turned and glared at him, hiding the fact that he had startled him.

“Ichigo, can you come to the kitchen?” he said quietly.

“Why?” he asked with narrowed eyes.

“Someone to see you,” he said. “I think you should.”

Ichigo stood up and watched Gin warily. “Who is it?”

“Your sisters, and the man who’s been raising them,” he said with a distant look.

Ichigo started to say no, but Szayel kissed his cheek. “Baby, go. You have family. Don’t lose this chance to see them again.”

“But I don’t want them,” he commented, looking at Szayel for a moment. “I have you and the others.”

“Do it for me then,” Szayel said and Ichigo rolled his eyes. He couldn’t get out of it then if Szayel was asking him to do it.

“Alright,” he muttered and followed Gin into the kitchen.

Ichigo’s eyes landed first on the two girls and he thought his head might explode. A million memories began spiraling through his mind at one time. Babies, then smiling little girls and his mother’s face… He swallowed thickly. “K-Karin…Yuzu…” he said as he looked between them.

Yuzu stood up and moved around the table. “Ichi-nii,” she said and reached for him.

Ichigo shook his head and moved back, nearly into Gin. “I can’t…Gin…I gotta…” he muttered as he tried to turn away.

“No, come on,” Gin said as he held him for a second against his chest. “Come on; just give it a chance…” Gin could feel his breath hot on his collarbone and his pulse racing where he held his wrist loosely.

Ichigo composed himself and turned back and glanced at the other two people. “I…I don’t know you…” he said quietly.

“Ichigo, here, let’s sit down,” Gin said and moved him to the end of the table.

Kisuke watched as the girls sat down, both staring at him. Ichigo looked better than he had, of course, but he still had fading bruises on his face and arms where they could be seen. His hair hadn’t been cut yet, and it still was long down over his shoulders.

“Ichigo, I’m Kisuke Urahara, and this is my friend Yoruichi Shihōin. After your kidnapping, your father brought the girls to me to protect them,” he said softly.

Ichigo nodded. “Why…why?”

“He wanted to find you, he thought he could do it himself, but he didn’t want to put them at risk, so we took them in,” he said with a nod of his head.

Ichigo nodded and crossed his arms over his chest. He rubbed his hands over his upper arms and looked at him. “I…I don’t know how to act. I’ve been there for five years. I don’t…I don’t remember anything else very clearly,” he stated flatly. “I just…I don’t know what I can give you. I don’t remember what I am except this ‘doll’.”

“You…you’re our brother,” Yuzu said with tears brimming in her eyes. “You’re always going to be our brother. And you don’t have to give us anything,” she nearly gasped out. “We just…we are glad you are alive and safe.”

“Safe for now,” he muttered as he turned his head away. “I’ve been safe before and they pulled me back.”

“We’re not going to let that happen,” Gin said and put a hand on Ichigo’s shoulder. “We’re going to protect all of you.”

Ichigo’s eyes blazed for a second and he turned on Gin in a split second. “You have no idea! You can’t protect us! They’ll be back, they’ll get in here like they did the hospital, and they’ll take me or all of us back, and then they’ll disappear again and we’ll be somewhere a thousand miles away and nobody will find us!”

Ichigo stood up and nearly knocked the chair back and shook his head. “You don’t understand! Nothing you do will help! It will never change!”

Gin started to reach out to take him by the arms when Ichigo reacted first, throwing a punch across Gin’s jaw. Gin blinked, his head spinning for a second before he staggered backward. When his vision cleared he was looking up at Kisuke. He grinned.

“Fucking kid packs a punch,” he muttered and rubbed his jaw. “Already broke my nose once…” he said as he stood up. “Where’d he go?” he asked.

Szayel came in. “He’s fine, Gin,” he said with a sigh as he helped him up. “He’s pouting a bit,” Szayel sighed. “You might come back in a few days; he’s still in withdrawal from the drugs.”

Kisuke nodded and headed out with the girls. He knew that he’d have to have a long talk with them when they got to the hotel.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Cang Du smiled as he walked up to the door of the Executor and entered. He stopped at the first guard and showed his credentials. He was motioned to the elevator. He grinned again. He stepped into the elevator and looked at his reflection. Other than the scar on his face, he looked almost like the picture of the red head that had been on the badge. Of course, they’d altered it and he’d gotten a wig. The tattoos weren’t possible, but he didn’t need to be exactly like his mark. He was supposed to get in, and he was supposed to wait until after they’d gone to bed. Then he was to grab the Chosen Child and get out.

He showed the credentials when he got of the elevator. The only possible problem with the plan was if someone who knew this Abarai guy ran into him. Still, it was a chance worth taking. He smiled as he wandered the hallways of the top floor. How had it been this easy? He smiled to himself. Well, he was rather good at disguising himself. He found a small janitorial closet or something and slipped inside. He pulled out his phone and set the timer to buzz in his pocket at around thee am. He leaned back against the wall and promptly fell asleep.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Luppi went across the hall with Wonderweiss to see what he had fixed for dinner. He’d gathered from Riruka that he liked to cook. He nearly tripped over something small and furry. He glanced down and saw a guinea pig scampering about the room. He didn’t remember that from before, but then he had been way out of it then. He found that he had a very nice place now that he got a chance to really look at it in the light. He saw a large pot on the stove so he grabbed it and Wonderweiss grabbed a smaller pot and a bowl. He nodded to Luppi and they headed back across to the other room.

Luppi sat the pot on the stove and Wonderweiss began preparing the bowls. “What is it?” Luppi asked.

Riruka looked over. “Ah, rice porridge with ginger,” she said as she watched Wonderweiss top each bowl with a sprinkle of ginger. She glanced in the other pot. “Miso soup. He’s vegetarian, but he likes a lot of different things now and then.”

Szayel came and helped pass out the porridge and soup to everyone and then they sat in mostly silence as they all ate. Szayel was growing worried about all the boys, but especially after Ichigo’s outburst earlier, he was concerned that the way he was dealing with this was really damaging. He shook his head and tried to think of anything he could do to help them.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

“What do you mean you were mugged?” Byakuya Kuchiki said with a deeply etched frown on his face.

Renji shifted his weight on his feet. “I was at a bar, I wasn’t drunk, you know I don’t drink that much, and someone whacked me in the head,” he said and lifted his hair to show Byakuya the four staples he’d had to get.

Byakuya sighed. “Okay, so what did you lose?”

“Um, my driver’s, my credit cards, my keycard to the…safe house…and my badge…” he said with dawning horror.

Byakuya stared at him. “That can’t be a coincidence, get Ichimaru on the phone, now,” he yelled at his receptionist.

A few minutes later, he was on the phone with him. “We may have a security breech.”

“How?” Gin asked with a great deal of annoyance.

“Renji Abarai got mugged, and they took his wallet and everything he had, including the keycard and his identity badge,” he said with a sigh.

“Alright, I’ll alert everyone to make sure they double check people, and if there’s any doubt, send them away,” he said and hung up.

Byakuya sighed and looked at the redhead. “Why are you always such a thorn in my side?” he said.

Renji ran a hand over his head. “Lucky, I guess…” he muttered.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Ichigo was having a hard time sleeping and he had no idea why. He was hot, but then he was cold, then he didn’t know how he felt. Instead he got up and went and sat in the living area and stared at the blank TV. He heard someone and looked up to see Gin coming into the room. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked as he fell into the couch beside him.

“No, just seeing my sisters today…I’m sorry I punched you…again…” he said and looked at him with a sheepish grin.

Gin smiled at him. “No, I understand. But you have a mean punch, no wonder they had to dope you up. You would have killed someone if they hadn’t,” he stated.

Ichigo nodded. “Yeah.”

Gin looked at him for a long moment. “Anything you want to talk about?”

Ichigo sighed and shook his head. “Want to? No. Probably should, yeah. I just…I remembered the beginning. I just…the first time I saw the guy, the guy they worship and stuff, he was so big and imposing and I was so scared of him. He just was…I can’t explain it. That…that’s what they called training,” he said and looked at his hands. “They’d take the new ones to him. He’d take them for a month, two months, whatever it took to break the new boy. Some of us took longer,” he muttered and twisted his fingers around each other. “Some not as much. I think Ggio was only with him two weeks. I was almost three months,” he said and bit his lip for a moment. “It was like…this weird surreal thing, being with him. I think he used LSD or something hallucinogenic on us then. I know that it had to be something because nothing felt real.”

“What do you mean by breaking?” Gin asked softly.

Ichigo swallowed. “Well, at first, it was shit like we had to sit on the floor, and we had to crawl, and if we tried to stand up, he’d whack us with this long cane of some sort. It hurt a lot when he did it. Then, he’d start making us do degrading things,” he said softly. “Like licking his feet or eating off the floor. He said it was to show our servitude and devotion to him, our new god.” Ichigo paused and looked upward at nothing. “Then he started touching. Not a lot at first, but over a week it progressed to holding us down and using his fingers or other things on us until we…we…we begged him to stop. And then he wouldn’t, and he’d tie us down and keep doing it again and again and we couldn’t move no matter what…” Ichigo rubbed his face. “He said…he said that we were going to be pleasure slaves for him. And that…and that meant that we had to be ready for whatever would happen to us at the Sacred House, that’s what he called the fucking brothel, whatever the fuck that means.”

“When did he let you leave him?” Gin wondered at him.

“Well after he’d taken to fucking us until we screamed,” he muttered. “He said it was training. He said he didn’t like to do these things, that he hated to do it, but he had to train us properly. He said he had to know who would please him the most. He said that…that…only the one with the brightest fire would be chosen. And it was, you know, all the ones that disappeared, they were the ones that still fought and still, even after everything, would try to hurt them. That’s why…why I knew I was going to disappear soon,” he said and bit his lip. “I just couldn’t stop fighting them. Every time I just couldn’t let them. No matter how much they beat me, and I just couldn’t. Maybe I knew that it would mean that he’d eventually ‘choose’ me, and I’d get out one way or another. We weren’t stupid, doped up, but not stupid. We knew that the ones that disappeared were dead.”

Gin moved a little closer to him and reached out. He put his hand on top of Ichigo’s. “I can’t take it away,” he said then. “But…but I can do my best to make sure you don’t go back to him. I know that you don’t want to hear promises that we’ll keep you safe. But I can promise that I will do everything I can to do that,” he said and he felt Ichigo grip his hand a bit tighter.

Ichigo nodded and felt something he hadn’t felt in a while. He turned and dropped Gin’s hand. He leaned into him and grabbed him around the neck. Gin started a bit then put his arms around his back. To Gin’s surprise, he felt his body start to shake. He rubbed his back as his shirt slowly soaked through.


	7. Broken Dolls

 

To receive a call after so long was a surprise. Nnoitra Gilga sat at the bar and stared at his phone. The number was unknown, but local. He debated answering but he looked up as Ganju Shiba, his business partner in ownership of the bar. Ganju shrugged as he wiped down the bar. Nnoitra had been dwelling a lot on the past lately, and he didn’t know why. He grit his teeth and answered.

“Gilga,” he said with a sigh.

“You are listed as a contact for an open case through INTERPOL for a Tesla Lindocruz, correct?” the voice on the other end said and for a minute, he couldn’t breathe.

“Um, yeah, has he been found?” he asked.

“He has been found. If you would come down the Shinigami offices in Tokyo, we can give you more information.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” he said and put the phone into his black motorcycle jacket.

“What was that?” Ganju asked curiously.

“They found him, my Tesla, they found him,” he said as he nervously pulled his keys out of his pocket.

Ganju smiled. “Go get your boy, Nnoi. You’ve been waiting for that call a long time, ever since you left Lisbon with me, man. Go see him.”

“But the bar…” he said, looking around. It wasn’t even noon, so the bar didn’t open until one.

“I’ll handle it, you go on,” he said with a smirk.

Nnoitra nodded and went out the door to hop on his bike. He took off and his mind raced a mile a minute. He tried so hard to get Tesla off the streets while they were in Portugal. He just wanted to take care of him, but he couldn’t get him off the drugs. He thought when the other paranoid drugged up bastard put his eye out, he would have listened to reason. He had tried to get Tesla to go once he got his bike fixed up and running. He tried so hard, and then he was just gone. He’d gone to Lisbon on a whim, doing odd jobs here and there. One weekend he went to a motorcycle show and met Ganju there. He and his friends wanted a guide to the local area, and he offered to help. They’d ended up striking up a great friendship, and when Ganju returned to Japan, wanting to open a biker bar in Tokyo. It wasn’t like Nnoitra had anything else holding him down.

So it was that by noon that afternoon, he stood at the doorway of the Executor building nervously explaining to a blonde haired agent who he was and why he was there. A few minutes later, he was escorted up to the upper level and a man with silvery blond hair came out.

“You are here to see Tesla?” Gin asked him solemnly.

“Yes, I…I was friends with him before…well, more than friends…and we…” he said nervously. “I tried to get him to leave with me then he was just gone.

Gin looked over the other man. He was extremely tall, perhaps six and a half feet or more. He had a bandana covering one eye, and long black hair framing his face. He was wearing dark jeans and boots with a band t-shirt and a leather jacket. He could see that he was worried about what he was going to face in there.

“Look, I’m not going to give you a pretty story. He’s been in a brothel, drugged up, and worse. He’s having a hard time since he’s come down off the drugs, but he’s not alone. There were eight of them, and they’ve all had a struggle to figure out what to do now that they’re free,” Gin said seriously.

Nnoitra swallowed hard. “Okay, I’ll do what I have to do to help him,” he said quietly.

“Alright, come on,” he said with a sigh and led him into the apartment. He waved Szayel over. “Szay, this is a friend of Tesla’s. He’s come to see him.”

Szayel, who had donned a rather feminine looking outfit today looked Nnoitra over. “Be careful with him, he’s having some severe nightmares,” he said and went to get Tesla.

Gin took him into the dining area and waited until Szayel brought Tesla into the room. As soon as he looked up and realized who was there he tried to leave immediately.

“Tesla, please, love…” Nnoitra said as he stepped around. “I know, okay, I know what happened,” he said quietly. “Please, don’t leave me again.”

Tesla turned at the door and looked back at him. “N-noi, I’m s-sorry…” he said and Nnoitra stepped forward and clutched him to his chest.

“No, no, baby, don’t. I’m sorry I couldn’t do more and stop this…” he said as Gin heard Tesla sob into his chest.

“I’ll leave you here,” Gin said and headed out of the dining room with Szayel. Gin looked at him. “You think he’ll be okay?”

“He might, if he takes care of him. Oh, some other good news, I think Findorr has taken a liking to that tall fellow that plays the guitar and takes care of the pigeons, Chad, I believe is his name. He’s gone to sit on the roof with him several times,” Szayel said as they headed into the living room.

“And the others?” Gin asked as he saw Ichigo was curled into a ball on the couch watching Luppi and Wonderweiss play a video game.

“I’m most worried about Ulquiorra right now. Ggio…he’s adjusting. He’s started playing video games and watching TV with Luppi. My brother seems to be trying to avoid anything by staying busy. I was thinking maybe that nurse and doctor might talk with him. They seem to be gentle enough,” he said with a sigh.

Gin nodded. “I’ll go check on Ichigo,” he said with a nod and found the boy leaning against the window and staring out into a murky looking day.

“What?” he asked as Gin came up and leaned back against the window.

“What? Can’t I come see you without a specific reason?” Gin said with a smirk.

Ichigo sighed. “I’m sorry, I keep thinking of my sisters.”

“I think they still are very worried about you,” he said with a glance into the room where Ggio and Luppi had gotten into an intense game of racing on the game system.

“I don’t know what to think about them. I don’t know what to think about being free. I’m just…I don’t like being able to think. I just want to stop thinking again,” he said and pushed the long locks behind his ear. “I mean, stupid simple things bother me. Like, do I cut my hair? Do I leave it long? And I can’t choose, so I do nothing.”

Gin sighed and reached over to put his hand on Ichigo’s. Ichigo stared at it for a long moment. “You don’t have to choose anything yet. What you’ve been through…it is indescribable for the most part. Even trauma counselors struggle with this sort of thing. Sure, it is easy to counsel someone who was jumped in an alley. But to counsel someone on dealing with years of torment? Not so easy. Not that it is ever easy, but this…this is different. They took you as a child and molded you into doing this, and even then, you resisted, fought…” Gin said started to continue when he was surprised.

Before Gin knew what happened, Ichigo had moved, faster than he anticipated, and grabbed Gin by the face and kissed him on the lips. It was light, and fast, and then he turned and disappeared into the bathroom. Gin stood there for a second blinking in surprise. Did that just happen?

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Orihime sat down on the bed where Ulquiorra was sitting and staring into space. “Hey,” she said quietly.

“Hey,” he responded with no tone to his voice.

“I just thought we could talk,” she said with a smile.

“Talking is irrelevant. What will be accomplished? You know the details of what I have endured, so there is little point in discussing it from my point of view. The easiest way to cope with this is to simply subtract emotion from it because that is what causes pain. Without emotion, there is no pain, only numbness,” he said and still refused to look at her.

“I think you are a very lovely person,” she said. “And I wish that you would see that emotions aren’t the problem, it is what was done. And you didn’t need to have it done to you. I think that you decided that you didn’t want to hurt, so it was easy just to stop. That’s not helpful, though, because the pain is still there, even if you don’t feel it.”

Ulquiorra frowned and looked at her. “How can pain be present if I cannot feel it?” he asked with a frown.

She smiled. “I know it sounds wrong, but if I take a local anesthetic, and I inject your arm where there is a wound, does the wound disappear?”

“Of course not, the wound remains, but the pain is gone,” he said.

“No, actually, your perception of pain has been altered. The pain is still there, only covered up by the anesthetic. If the pain was truly gone, when it wore off, the pain would be gone still. But it isn’t, it comes back. So it is only covering the pain,” she said and looked at him with her gentle gray eyes.

Ulquiorra stared at her for a long moment. “So…covering the pain does not cure it.”

“Correct,” she said with a smile.

“To cure the pain, you must cure the wound?” he asked.

Orihime nodded. “I think…the easiest thing to do is numb the pain, but while that helps, it doesn’t fix it. Time and care heals wounds. So if you can care for them, they are so much better.”

Ulquiorra sat quietly beside her for a long time before he looked up and locked his brilliantly green eyes on her. “What if it hurts so much that you can’t breathe?”

She smiled gently at him. “Then you find someone to help you breathe.”

“There you are,” Uryū said as he walked over with his hands in his pockets. “How are you today, Ulquiorra?” he said.

“I am…confused by everything and I do not know how to feel,” he said and looked up at him.

Uryū smiled. “That’s okay, we’ll help, you know, if you let us.”

“Why do you want to help me so much? Is there a reason that you find me in need of your attention over the others?” he said with an eye shifting between the two of them.

“I want to help everyone,” Uryū said. “And if they were distant and in pain, I would go to them, but they have other ways to heal. You have found no other ways to heal yet. Ggio and Luppi play games, Findorr helps Chad, Ichigo seems to be bonding with Gin of all people, and Illfordt and Szayel are working through things together. Tesla’s lost love has come back to see him. You need someone, and I just honestly wish to help, so does Orihime,” Uryū said. “I am a doctor, after all.”

Ulquiorra looked at them both curiously and wondered how he could handle these things. “How…how would one start to remember how to feel something if they’ve forgotten?” he asked and looked at them.

Orihime put an arm around his shoulders. “The first step is to realize that it is okay to feel. And maybe we can go from there.”

Ulquiorra wasn’t sure about it, but he figured there was no harm in trying.

-oooooo-OOOOOO-oooooo-

Cang Du stretched as the day turned to night outside. He could tell when the watches changed because of the distinct walk of someone with steel toed boots. He smirked as he stepped out into the dark hallway and saw that there was a guard outside the door. He needed to quickly take him out first. He started to move down the hall and heard something behind him. He turned and saw a figure with blonde hair at the end. He started to bolt, but he looked toward the guard and back and the figure was gone. Cang Du shook his head. Well, that was weird, he thught as he snuck up to the guard and quickly injected him in the neck with the syringe he was holding.  He eased the body down and drug it to the supply closet. He smirked. When he woke up he was going to be freaked out, he thought to himself.

He turned to go back to the door when he saw the same blonde haired figure at the other end of the hall. Just staring at him. He checked behind him and looked back to see he was gone again. He figured he was just seeing things. He started to reach for the knob when he felt someone behind him. He turned and nearly jumped out of his skin when there was a shorter blonde haired boy with bright violet eyes staring at him. He was wearing a blue colored robe of some sort with white flowers on it. His hands were tucked behind his back.

“Ah, hey, there, um, see, just a Shinigami agent,” he said and showed him the badge clipped to his chest.

“Not him.”

Cang Du frowned and looked at the boy. “Now, boy, I’m sure you don’t know every agent that works here, and see, I’m Renji Abarai, and that’s my picture, so you don’t need to worry, I’m just taking over for the guy that was here. I was just gonna go in and check it out, make sure everyone’s okay tonight,” he said, reaching into his pocket for the other syringe he had. He guessed he’d have to just knock the boy he was after out. He really couldn’t have some spooky ass kid blowing his cover.

He shook his head. “Not him,” he repeated.

“Come on, kid, gimme a break, I’m just trying to do my job here,” he said with a sigh.

The boy leaned forward and touched the badge with one finger, then poked Cang Due in the chest. “You. Not him.”

“I have not got time for this shit,” he muttered and pulled out the syringe, moving to jab him in the neck. He didn’t expect the kid to move out of the way then pull a freaking cattle prod from behind his back and pointed it at him.

“Not him!” he yelled loudly and jabbed the prod into his stomach.

He yelped and hit the floor. About that time, the lights in the hall all went on and Gin came rushing out into the hallway and saw the downed man and Wonderweiss staring at him. He looked up at Gin.

“Not him,” he said matter of factly.

Gin knelt down and saw Renji’s badge was on his chest. He looked over at him. “Wait, you never met Renji, right? How did you know it wasn’t him?”

“Saw him.”

Wonderweiss turned and went back to his room just as Riruka came out and looked down. “Oh my.”

“Apparently, Wonderweiss has a cattle prod?” Gin said as he stood up and pulled out his phone.

“Yeah. Is this the guy that had that other agent’s credentials?” she asked.

Gin nodded, making the call to Byakuya to let him know that they’d gotten Renji’s stuff back and caught the guy trying to use it. He looked at Riruka. “How’d Wonderweiss even know what Renji really looked like?”

Riruka smiled. “Well, he’s somewhat photographic in memory to put it in common terms. He pays attention to all of you, and he also has some binoculars we bought him. That boy doesn’t miss a detail. He wanders the building at all hours of the night when he can’t sleep. Amazing what kind of stuff he comes up with when he comes back sometimes…” she said with a smirk.

“I’m just glad that we caught this guy before he could get in,” he muttered as he started going over his pockets. Inside he found some other things like the rest of Renji’s stuff, as well as a few odd items like keys with strange keychains on them.

A few moments later, one of the agents from the main office came and took away their intruder, and found Shuuhei had been injected with a tranquilizer and drug into the broom closet. Gin looked at Riruka. “Don’t tell the others, I don’t want them to worry.”

He headed back into the apartment and nearly ran into Ichigo. He stopped and stared at him. Ichigo looked at him.

“They tried, didn’t they?” he said quietly.

“We don’t know it was them, not for sure,” Gin said.

“Don’t play that with me. It was them, and you know very well that it was, don’t fucking lie to me,” he said and tried to turn away.

Gin reached out and grasped his arm lightly and pulled him back. “Ichigo, stop.”

“What? What are you doing?” he said.

“Why did you kiss me earlier?” he asked.

“What, I don’t…I mean, it was just…” he gasped and tried to pull away.

Gin moved quickly to press him back into the wall, but was careful to not cage him. “Please, tell me?”

Ichigo swallowed and looked away. He crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s stupid.”

“No it isn’t,” Gin said with a sigh.

“I just…you’re the first person I wanted to kiss, and I just…I did it,” he said and ducked his head, avoiding Gin’s brilliant blue gaze.

Gin reached up and put a hand against Ichigo’s cheek. “I liked that you did it,” he said with a sly grin.

Ichigo looked up somewhat in surprise. “What?”

Gin shook his head. “What? You thought I’d mind you kissing me?” he asked.

“I just, I mean, you’re not like me, and there’s no reason for anyone t-to…”

“Shush,” Gin said and leaned forward, placing a chaste kiss against Ichigo’s stammering lips.

“Why did you do that?” he asked quietly.

“Because I wanted to,” Gin said. “I like you, and you like me, so why not?” he said.

Every single thought in Gin’s brain was trying to scream at him to stop this. He shouldn’t be doing this. Ichigo was a victim. Ichigo was someone that was in a bad place. Ichigo was broken. Ichigo was in desperate need of healing. Ichigo was…in his heart.

Ichigo swallowed dryly this time. “I don’t know, I’m just…what do I do…” he whispered and turned away.

“Well, first, we’ll get you feeling better, and then, if you are still interested in my affections, maybe we can take it a step further. Maybe not. Time will tell to be sure,” he said as he put his hand against his cheek again.

Ichigo sighed. “But I shouldn’t want…”

“Love? Comfort? Affection?” Gin asked. “You need those things, because they were never given to you,” he said as he leaned forward and placed a kiss between his eyes and another on the tip of his nose. “And if you want them from me, when you’re ready, you just have to say so.”

Ichigo stared at him for a long time. “What…what if I think I’m ready now?”

Gin smiled and pulled him into a hug. “I’ll be here. I’ll hold you and help you, I promise, until you are ready to choose your future.”

Ichigo returned the hug and wondered exactly what this feeling was building inside him. Was this what it was like to truly feel something? He hadn’t felt in so long, he’d forgotten what it was…


End file.
